Chances of load shedding low to medium ahead of Sona

Cape Town - The chances of load shedding for Thursday are medium to low as the system remains constrained, Eskom said in a tweet.

The power utility on Wednesday moved from stage 1 to stage 2 load shedding to cope with demand as temperatures rise and amid planned and unplanned outages. Stage 2 load shedding ended 30 minutes later than scheduled at 22:30.

Expectations however are that there will be no load shedding ahead of President Jacob Zuma's State of the Nation address later on Thursday. Last week parliament said it had been given an assurance the lights would stay on for the speech.

Eskom said in a statement it implements load shedding as a last resort to protect the power system from collapsing and only shed what is required to balance demand and supply.

It is hoped that Zuma will unveil a rescue plan or at least shed some light on the issue of continued rolling blackouts after experts and analysts warned of the far-reaching consequences of load shedding on the economy.