Eskom gives the all-clear for winter
Power utility Eskom says that South Africa is entering the winter months with a stable power system, with no hint of load shedding or national interruptions on the cards.
Presenting its winter 2026 outlook, the power utility said its Generation Recovery Plan—implemented to combat load shedding over the past few years—is now firmly embedded in its day-to-day operations.
Because of this, it has moved beyond short-term recovery into a phase of stability and sustained energy security, which will keep homes, businesses and industries powered through the peak winter months.
A notable achievement of the plan is Eskom maintaining a consistent energy supply of 98.9% in the last Financial Year (1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026), a marked improvement from 9% two years ago.
The winter outlook projects this will continue through the peak winter months and into the end of August 2026.
It said that additional capacity has been secured primarily through a 5.2GW reduction in unplanned losses, supplemented by 1.1GW from demand‐side management programmes.
“On this basis, Eskom has a surplus peak capacity of about 6GW over the winter period,” it said.
This ‘new normal’ has enabled Eskom to lower its base-case assumption for unplanned outages to approximately 12 GW, down from 13 GW in the previous winter outlook.
Even under higher-stress conditions, where unplanned losses approach 14 GW, the system is expected to remain resilient, with no load shedding anticipated under the scenarios Eskom plans for.
The group has kept load shedding at bay for 341 consecutive days.
Other notable improvements include reducing diesel expenditure by R26.9 billion since FY2023, with an overall reduced reliance on open-cycle gas turbine (OCGT) emergency peaking power.
Diesel expenditure in FY2026 is at approximately R6.4 billion, or R10 billion lower year on year compared to FY2025.
The Energy Availability Factor (EAF) improved by around 10.8 percentage points, from 54.55% in FY2023 to 65.35% in FY2026.
While long-term EAF is still below the target of 70%, Eskom said it has reached or exceeded it on more than 83 occasions during FY26.
Unplanned losses have been reduced by around 7.4GW, declining from 16.5GW to 9.1GW as
at 31 March 2026.
Planned maintenance increased, averaging 5.4GW. This is higher than the average of 4.7GW in FY2023 to peaks of around 8.0GW.
Load reduction and pricing problems
While South Africa has moved away from load shedding, problems in the energy sector persist.
This includes cases of localised load reduction across the country, with energy costs for consumers putting households under immense pressure.
Eskom also faces a mountain of municipal debt, where over R100 billion is owed to the group.
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said that load reduction is just as bad as load shedding, as it still results in energy users sitting without power on rotating schedules.
He has made the commitment to end the practice in seven of nine provinces by the end of the calendar year, with the two remaining provinces—Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal—being addressed by Q1 2027.
Eskom said it is working with the Department of Electricity and Energy and relevant stakeholders to eliminate load reduction.
It said its programme has already yielded results, with the Northern Cape and Western Cape now fully removed from load reduction schedules.
A key part of the programme is the installation of more than 600,000 smart meters, which improve network visibility, support better load management and help stabilise local electricity networks.
By September 2026, Eskom expects that about 60% of feeders currently affected by load reduction, 573 out of 971, will be removed from load reduction, with the remaining feeders addressed progressively by 2027.
On the pricing side, Ramokgopa said that Eskom and the government have committed to seeing out the MYPD6 pricing and that, going forward, they will restrict increases to inflation-linked or single-digit increases.
However, this comes with the caveat that there will be categories for dealing with electricity price increases.
For example, Eskom will provide tailored tariffs for large energy users. Meanwhile, the free basic electricity programme will be increased beyond the current 50kWh.
Another caveat for energy users is that even single-digit increases could easily double or triple the rate of inflation-linked salary adjustments.
This is the case with the increases in 2026 and 2027, where Eskom has been granted tariff hikes of 8.8% – almost triple the rate of headline inflation (circa 3%).
The headline price increases also do not factor in other price adjustments – such as the increases to fixed fees – which easily push effective price increases far beyond what is claimed.
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