{"id":838261,"date":"2025-09-25T08:59:31","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T06:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=838261"},"modified":"2025-09-25T09:00:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T07:00:46","slug":"best-news-for-eskom-in-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/838261\/best-news-for-eskom-in-four-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Best news for Eskom in four years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Continuing its stark turnaround and improving operations, national power utility Eskom has hit its best energy generation performance since 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest data published by the group shows that its Energy Availability Factor (EAF) has hit close to 73% over the past two weeks and has remained consistently over 70% for the past month or so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is above the target set by the group’s board for the generation fleet, albeit behind previous schedules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More impressive is that this peak is better than any hit over the past four years, with 2021 peaking just under 70%, 2022 peaking at around 64%, and 2023 barely managing 59%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2024, which was the year of Eskom’s turnaround and improvement path, peaked just over 70%, but 2025 has now surpassed even that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to energy expert Chris Yelland, looking at year-on-year data, Eskom’s performance in week 38 is 12 percentage points higher than in the same period in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s notable about Eskom’s current performance is that it does not include Kusile Unit 6, which has been contributing 720MW to the national grid since 23 March 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the unit is not yet in commercial operation, it is expected to reach this milestone by 30 September 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when not accounting for Kusile’s contribution, EAF has been fluctuating between 70% and 74%, with the month-to-date average at 71.12%, Eskom said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yelland also noted that, while EAF is much higher than last year, planned maintenance outages are three percentage points lower and unplanned outages are eight percentage points lower than for the comparable period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that Eskom is doing slightly less maintenance, but is also experiencing significantly fewer breakdowns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom said that unplanned outages reached an eight-year low of 5,989MW on 14 September 2025 and are down 5,615MW year-on-year, which is the equivalent of a power station the size of Medupi, one of the largest in the fleet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means more generating units are available and performing reliably, providing a consistent electricity supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has also been seen through the lack of load shedding being implemented, contrasting from some shakiness of the fleet in the first quarter of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa has now gone 131 consecutive days without load shedding, with only 26 hours recorded between 1 April and 18 September 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is a very significant and dramatic operational performance improvement indeed. Well done to the Eskom Generation team led by Bheki Nxumalo,” Yelland said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom board chair Mteto Nyati also welcomed the development, attributing the outperformance to the generation team’s efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Eskom energy availability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Eskom planned maintenance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Eskom unplanned breakdowns<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Load reduction still a problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While Eskom’s national generation performance has improved significantly, many households are not benefitting from the turnaround thanks to load reduction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It usually occurs in areas with many illegal connections, which overload infrastructure and force utilities to reduce demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this will be easier said than done, with a multilateral approach needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group said it will tackle electricity theft and remove over 600,000 illegal connections at the heart of many load reduction issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will also take on the problems through the installation of 7.2 million smart meters, with around 880,000 already deployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019t need to set up illegal connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is expected to present some of the government’s plans to end load reduction on Thursday (25 September).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing its stark turnaround and improving operations, national power utility Eskom has hit its best energy generation performance since 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":833368,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[1164],"class_list":["post-838261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-eskom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=838261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":838268,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838261\/revisions\/838268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}