South Africa will be on stage 6 load-shedding until further notice, Eskom has announced.

“Since Sunday afternoon a generating unit each at Arnot, Hendrina, Lethabo and Majuba, as well as two units at Camden Power Station have suffered breakdowns and taken offline for repairs,” it said.

Two generating units at Lethabo power station were also shut down due to coal constraints.

“The New Vaal Mine that is supplying the station has been unable to deliver the expected amount of coal during the past week because of the heavy rains,” Eskom stated.

“The three running units are operating at minimum capacity and are at risk of shutdown should the coal supply constraints not be resolved.”

Given the high number of breakdowns, Eskmo warned further changes to load-shedding stages could happen at short notice.

“Breakdowns currently amount to 21,243MW of generating capacity while 3,566W of generating capacity is out of service for planned maintenance,” the state-owned power utility said.

The announcement comes after Eskom said earlier on Sunday that it expected to reduce rotational power cuts to stage 4 from 05:00 on Monday morning.

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana is scheduled to deliver his budget speech on Wednesday, 22 February, where he is expected  to announce tax incentives for rooftop solar.

President Cyril Ramaphosa promised the tax breaks during his State of the Nation address.

“We are going to proceed with the rollout of rooftop solar panels,” Ramaphosa said.

“In his budget speech, the minister of finance will outline how households will be assisted and how businesses will be able to benefit from a tax incentive.”