Six Months of Uninterrupted Power as Eskom Eyes a Stable Summer

The Best Gift This Season: A Grid That Holds

For the first time in years, South Africans can plan their holiday lights, festive dinners, and family gatherings with a rare sense of certainty: the lights are expected to stay on. Eskom has confirmed that the country is heading into the festive season without any load shedding anticipated, extending a remarkable streak of 203 consecutive days of uninterrupted power supply.

This milestone is more than just a seasonal reprieve; it’s the result of a sustained, six-month period of stability that many had begun to think was impossible. Spokesperson Daphne Mokwena pointed to a resilient power system that is “consistently meeting demand,” with Eskom bringing a substantial 3,600MW of generation capacity online for the evening peak on Monday.

The Numbers Behind the Calm

The data reveals a system slowly healing. The average Unplanned Capacity Loss Factormeasuring breakdownshas dropped to 22.56% for early December, an improvement over last year. While planned maintenance has increased slightly, it remains lower than the previous period and is part of a scheduled programme to improve long-term plant reliability.

Perhaps the most telling figure is the diesel bill. For the first time this financial year, year-to-date diesel usage for the expensive Open Cycle Gas Turbines is below the same period last year, with costs at R6.193 billion. Even more striking, the load factor for these emergency turbines in December is currently at 0%they haven’t been run since November 28.

A Sustainable Summer Ahead?

This positive outlook is officially baked into Eskom’s Summer Outlook, which projects no load shedding through to March 2026, attributing the confidence to “sustained improvements in plant performance.” It’s a dramatic shift from the crisis management that has defined the utility’s narrative for the better part of a decade.

Beyond generation, Eskom is also tackling the separate but related issue of “load reduction” (localised cuts due to network overload in high-loss areas), with a phased programme aimed at ending the practice by 2027 through smart meters and other interventions.

For a nation conditioned to schedule life around power cuts, this festive season offers a new experience: normalcy. While experts caution that the structural reform of the energy sector is far from complete, the extended period of stability is a tangible, welcome giftproof that with consistent maintenance and improved operations, the darkness doesn’t have to be inevitable. The challenge now is to make this the new normal, long after the holiday decorations come down.

{Source: TheCitizen} 

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