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Johannesburg - The power system remains tight but is manageable, Eskom said on Wednesday.
"As winter is not entirely over we are still experiencing high demand, especially between 17:30 to 18:30," national control manager Al'Louise van Deventer said.
"The power system is tight and it will be for some time. We need to make sure we manage it well."
She said the parastatal communicated with consumers when any planned power cut was anticipated due to high demand.
The demand came from industrial, commercial, and residential users.
"We initiate blackouts when the power is in demand and we don't have means to generate more."
Firstly, customers were urged to lower their power usage to meet the demand in a case where the system was too tight.
Then blackouts were initiated if it remained tight.
Blackouts were initiated to avoid a system collapse where the entire country would be without electricity.
"We are very lucky we never had the entire country in blackout."
Eskom group executive Steve Lennon said entire country blackout recovery time was two weeks, assuming that everything went smoothly.
"We are not ready for that at all. We also have to prepare for blackouts because if we don't the consequences will be bad."
Users were urged to co-operate when asked to reduce power usage because that would prevent any power cuts.
