SA's electricity generation woes are set to continue, with load-shedding expected to see-saw back to stage 1 on Thursday.

Wednesday kicked off with stage 1 rotational power cuts, but by 2pm this was ramped up to stage 2 due to  a shortage of capacity as generation units tripped and electricity usage climbing due to cold weather in parts of the country.

Eskom said in an evening update that stage 1 load-shedding would commence at 9am until 2pm on Thursday — and then escalate to stage 2 until 10pm.

“Due to the much colder weather, demand for electricity has significantly increased this afternoon. It is now more than 2,000MW higher than yesterday, and we forecast that evening peak demand will still be much higher,” said the power utility.

“This was already the highest demand so far this year, at more than 33,000MW.

“This, together with generation units that have suffered breakdowns, is putting severe strain on the system. Eskom is working hard to return these generation units to service to help reduce the strain on the system.”

“Eskom teams this afternoon managed to return one generation unit to service at the Tutuka power station. This, however, was countered by a generation unit each at the Medupi and Kusile power stations tripping, contributing to the constrained capacity. This adds to one delayed generation unit at Tutuka and one at Kendal.”

- TimesLIVE