South African electricity provider Eskom has suspended load shedding, or scheduled blackouts, from morning until afternoon.

Poor maintenance, rising costs, falling revenues, crumbling infrastructure, corruption and mismanagement have all been blamed for the energy crisis.

The state-owned power utility began the latest round of load shedding on Sunday after 10 of its generating units broke down.

On Tuesday, Eskom said seven generators had resumed operation, improving power production.

“However, this is currently insufficient to fully supply the evening peak,” it said in a statement, adding that the next stage of load shedding would therefore run from “5pm until 10pm tonight”.

It said that the system was still vulnerable, and asked South Africans to use electricity “sparingly”.