Eskom has denied telling municipalities that stage 8 load-shedding is imminent, describing media articles claiming this to be "erroneous and incorrect".

In a statement on Tuesday, the power utility said that while it has developed contingency plans for a severe supply constraints this does not mean that it is planning to implement stage 8 load-shedding, which would see up to 8 000 MW shed from the national grid.

"The likelihood of reaching Stage 8 is low," it said.

The highest level of power cuts Eskom has yet implemented is stage 6.

"When Stage 6 load-shedding was implemented in December, not all metros or municipalities had published their extended load-shedding schedules," said Eskom in a statement.

"The Association of Municipal Electricity Utilities therefore engaged most of its members to confirm their compliance to the code – i.e. whether stages 5 to 8 had been published by those Metro’s that had not yet done so."

The utility said in a separate statement that it is not planning power cuts on Tuesday, as emergency reserves would likely be adequate to supplement a shortfall in generation capacity on should the need arise.