Nail in the coffin for load shedding in South Africa – with load reduction next
Power utility Eskom expects no load shedding this summer, with its longer two-year plan to eliminate load reductions as well.
This comes off the back of a relatively uneventful winter 2025 period between 1 April and 31 August, where only 26 hours of load shedding, on four separate evenings, were implemented.
The utility said this equated to a successful electricity supply 97% of the time, in line with its Winter Outlook.
Following the successful winter period, Eskom’s Summer Outlook for 1 September 2025 to 31 March 2026 forecasts no load shedding, it said.
This is a recovery of the Summer 2024/25 outlook, which saw 13 days of load shedding due to delayed unit returns from planned maintenance.
Compared with the commencement of last summer of 2024/25, supply and demand interventions at this comparative time have added ~4,000MW of extra capacity to meet expected demand this summer.
Eskom said that the Summer Outlook is supported by “an ongoing recovery and structural improvements in Eskom’s generation fleet”.
Adding more nails to the coffin of load shedding in the summer period are several positive results the utility has racked up. These included:
- A total of 7,800MW of capacity has been restored since 2023 through the completion of long-term outages and new builds, including 1,400MW from Medupi Unit 4 and Kusile Unit 6 added this year.
- Approximately 1,900MW reduction in peak planned maintenance this summer, following the completion of major planned outages during 2024 and early 2025, allowing for smoother execution.
- Energy Availability Factor (EAF) has increased from 55% in FY2023 to 60.6% in FY2025, with the year-to-date EAF at 61.1%, reflecting a 6.1% improvement over the past two years. These figures exclude Kusile Unit 6, which is not yet in commercial operation but is contributing to the grid.
- Diesel generator expenditure reduced from R33 billion in FY2024 ending 31 March 2024 to about R17 billion in FY2025, ending 31 March 2025.
The group noted that an additional 930MW of capacity is expected from Koeberg Unit 1 when it returns to service following Long-Term Operation maintenance in September 2025, which will also boost capacity.
Load reduction in the cross hairs
Eskom said that it has successfully reduced unplanned outages from over 13,000MW entering into the winter period to just over 10,000MW in August, sometimes hitting as low as 7,000MW.
EAF also reached 66% in August and has improved 10% yearly, with 38 units over 80%.
Diesel usage has also steadily declined, it said, falling from around 16.02% load factor in April to just 1.84% in August—well below the allowable limit of 6% set by Nersa.
However, this does not mean everything is clear and smooth at the utility. Its issues have moved from a national energy crisis to a more localised one, with load rotation becoming the norm for many.
Load reduction differs from load shedding in that it is not a scheduled national outage but a local response (on a community or district level) to overloaded systems.
It usually occurs in areas with many illegal connections, which overload infrastructure and force utilities to reduce demand.
The utility said that it aims to cut back instances of load reduction by up to 20% by March 2026, with the longer-term goal to eliminate the practice within two years.
However, this will be easier said than done, with a multilateral approach needed.
The group said it will tackle electricity theft and remove over 600,000 illegal connections at the heart of many load reduction issues.
It will also take on the problems through the installation of 7.2 million smart meters, with around 880,000 already deployed.
Eskom said it will also face the wider challenges causing load reduction through network upgrades where necessary and by registering more households for free basic electricity, so households won’t need to set up illegal connections.
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