While South Africans continue to enjoy a welcome reprieve from load-shedding, Eskom has warned the suspension could quickly be reversed if excess breakdowns occur.
The power utility’s winter outlook, published on May 5, stated no load-shedding is expected as long as breakdowns remain under the threshold.
However, Eskom said if unplanned outages increased to 15,000MW, the country could face up to 21 days of stage 2 load-shedding during winter.
By June 26, unplanned outages totalled a little more than that at 15,137MW.
“With this level of breakdowns, we are operating above our base-case scenario — and this could result in rotational power cuts if the situation worsens,” said Eskom.
Yet despite the high level of breakdowns, Eskom reported the generation system remains stable, with an available capacity of 30,703MW excluding Kusile unit 6, which has been contributing 720MW to the grid since March even though it has not yet entered commercial operation.
“With the combined capacity, Eskom is well-positioned to meet anticipated peak demand of 28,810MW,” said the utility.
Unplanned outages have averaged 14,696MW from June 20 to 26, up by 2,815MW compared with the same time last year.
Eskom said a significant portion of the increase has been attributed to Medupi unit 4, which has been offline since August 2021. It was initially expected back on May 30 but remains out of service.
“The delay in Medupi unit 4’s return was factored into the unplanned outage calculations from June 1, adding 800MW,” it said.
While technical challenges persist, Eskom said criminal activity was also placing immense pressure on the grid. From April 2024 to February 2025, infrastructure vandalism and theft cost Eskom R221m. This is a slight improvement from the R271m lost during the same time the year before.
“While load-shedding remains suspended and electricity demand continues to rise during winter, Eskom urges the public to avoid illegal connections and energy theft.
“These activities often lead to transformer overloads, equipment failures and in some cases explosions and extended outages, prompting the need for load reduction to protect the network.”
The utility applauded the police for an intelligence-driven operation in April that led to the arrest of six suspects found in possession of Eskom property worth R1.5m. They appeared in the Ngwelezane magistrate’s court near Empangeni, KwaZulu-Natal, on April 7.
To help stabilise the supply, Eskom is urging consumers to buy electricity only from accredited vendors and to regularise illegal connections.
For the week ending June 26, planned maintenance averaged 3,789MW, slightly down from the week before, which Eskom said signals improved plant availability.
On a broader scale, planned maintenance for the financial year to date has averaged 5,481MW, making up 11.67% of total generation capacity.
This is a small dip from the week before, but a 0.7% increase compared with the same period last year.
Eskom said the energy availability factor (EAF), a key metric indicating how much capacity is operational, averaged 60%-64% for the past week, with a month-to-date figure of 60.61%. However, in the year to date, the EAF is down to 58.47%, compared with 61.19% last year.
“This is primarily due to a 2.1% year-on-year increase in unplanned maintenance.”
The unplanned capability loss factor (UCLF), which represents the percentage of generation capacity lost due to breakdowns, has also worsened, increasing to 29.36% from 27.25% last year.
Eskom continues to rely heavily on diesel to power its open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs), though use has seen a slight decline in recent weeks. The year-to-date load factor for the OCGT fleet stands at 11.37%, down from 9.12% the week before but higher than the 6.21% recorded in 2024.
“Year to date, Eskom spent about R4.76bn on fuel for the OCGT fleet, generating 810.24GWh, compared with 442.65GWh during the same period last year.”
TimesLIVE
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