No power cuts until Jan: Eskom

As South Africans prepare for the summer holiday with lazy days of parties and fine food, Eskom says there will not be any disturbances caused by power cuts.

"As it stands and things don't change, the risk of load shedding is very low for today and the whole of December," the Eskom media desk said today.

Spokesman Andrew Etzinger said things were starting to look up for the power utility.

"There is a low probability of load shedding today. The grid is in good shape and unless something happens, the power will be fine," he said.

In recent weeks, the utility has battled to keep the lights on since the collapse of one of its coal storage silos, diesel shortages, and maintenance issues. Last weekend Eskom implemented stage three load shedding.

Stage one allows for up to 1000MW of the national load to be shed, stage two for up to 2000MW, and stage three for up to 4000MW.

When load shedding is implemented areas around the country have to take turns to be without electricity to prevent a total collapse of the power grid, until the issues are resolved.