Johannesburg: At midnight tonight, Eskom will reach 300 days without implementing load shedding-a milestone not seen since June 2018. This marks a significant achievement for the South African power utility, which has been working towards stabilizing its electricity supply.
According to South African Government News Agency, Eskom’s improvement follows the implementation of the Energy Action Plan introduced by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July 2022, alongside the company’s own Generation Recovery Plan. This effort has led to year-to-date diesel savings of R16.42 billion, a 62.9% reduction compared to the R26.09 billion spent during the same period last year.
In August, Eskom shared a positive summer outlook for the period from 1 September 2024 to 31 March 2025, predicting a load-shedding-free summer due to structural generation improvements. The company remains confident in this outlook.
Key performance highlights for Eskom include year-to-date unplanned outages averaging 12,040MW, which is 960MW below the summer base case of 13,000MW. As of Friday, unplanned outages stand at 12,566MW, with available generation capacity at 28,145MW. The Unplanned Capacity Loss Factor (UCLF) is at 25.22% for the financial year-to-date, showing a 7.6% improvement from the previous year.
Eskom continues to conduct planned maintenance at 6,799MW, aligning with its summer maintenance strategy to enhance reliability for winter 2025 and beyond. The strategic use of peaking stations, including pumped storage and Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs), remains crucial for managing electricity demand during peak times.
In other developments, Eskom has appointed Dr. Candice Hartley as Chief People Officer and Rivoningo Mnisi as Group Executive for Renewables. Eskom Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane, emphasized the importance of strengthening the executive team to drive the company’s strategy and address legacy management control issues.
Hartley brings two decades of Human Resources experience, having previously served as Executive Partner and Head of People at KPMG South Africa. Her focus will be on ensuring Eskom has the necessary skills to operate competitively and transitioning its human capital practices.
Mnisi, with a background in digitalization, innovation, and sustainability, was formerly Chief Strategy Officer at Exxaro. He aims to advance Eskom’s renewable energy business, focusing on developing at least 2GW of clean energy projects by 2026, with a long-term goal of more than 20GW of projects to diversify Eskom’s energy mix as part of its emissions reduction strategy.