Eskom says national power supply is still incredibly tight and with more rain forecast over the next few days.

This could result in the grid being placed under even more pressure, the power utility says.

The company says the system is likely to be fairly vulnerable to problems for at least the next two years while more generating capacity is built.

Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger says the parastatal is watching the weather forecast very closely.

“It brings us to to three weeks of virtually continuous rainfall over the area [NE/E South Africa]. We are working together with our suppliers to see what can be done to get the coal as dry as possible.”

The utility had to implement emergency load-shedding on Thursday due to severe pressure on the power grid.

Eskom implemented the power cuts for the first time in six years because coal supplies were wet after days of heavy rain.