Johannesburg - Stage 2 load shedding will continue on Sunday until 6am on Monday morning, embattled state-owned power utility Eskom said.

This was due to a shortage of generation capacity and depleted emergency reserves, which were used extensively to supplement capacity over the past few days, Eskom said in a statement.

Unplanned outages were at 11,150 MW. Eskom was monitoring the system closely and would continue to give periodic updates on the status of the power system, as things may change at short notice.

"We regret that load shedding has a negative impact on South Africa and we want to assure the nation that our teams are working hard to minimise the need for load shedding. Critical maintenance is being done to units on planned outages, as well as some of those on unplanned outages to ensure their timeous return to service. We will use the weekend to replenish dam levels for pumped storage schemes and diesel for open cycle gas turbines," Eskom said.

African News Agency (ANA)