Unplanned outages at power producer Eskom are still above 10 000MW – about 20% of its nominal capacity, but the utility says it is not planning to institute load-shedding on Thursday. 

The utility needs to use its emergency resources of diesel and pumped water storage schemes at a "high rate" every time unplanned breakdowns rise above 9500MW, which increases the likelihood of rotational power cuts to stop the grid from being overburdened. 

In a power update on Thursday morning, the utility said it has sufficient diesel for its open cycle gas turbines to run and water for its pumped storage schemes to supplement the shortage of capacity.

"The probability of load-shedding remains, but will only be implemented if absolutely necessary."

On Wednesday unplanned outages rose to 11 000MW, from 9 500 MW on Tuesday.