Eskom breakdowns milestone
Eskom announced that its unplanned outages dropped to their lowest level in nearly five years on Friday, with just 7,265MW of capacity offline due to breakdowns.
The power utility said this is the first time that total unit breakdowns have been lower than 8,000MW since 11 December 2020.
Eskom said the achievement highlighted structural progress in plant performance due to the ongoing implementation of its Generation Recovery Plan.
“Eskom’s sustained technical improvements have ensured a reliable power system, meeting more than 97% of electricity demand this winter and financial year to date,” Eskom said.
“With just over a week remaining in Eskom’s Winter Outlook period, the power system remains well-positioned to maintain stability and reliably meet demand.”
From the start of Eskom’s financial year on 1 April to 21 August 2025, the Unplanned Capability Loss Factor has decreased to 27.85%.
“This represents a week-on-week improvement of approximately 0.29%, although it remains about 2.0% higher than the 25.81% recorded during the same period last year,” Eskom said.
However, unplanned outages over the past week averaged at 10,471MW, lower than the 10,733MW recorded during the same period last year.
Eskom also ramped up planned maintenance slightly, with an average of 5,524MW offline for scheduled work.
In the year-to-date, planned maintenance has averaged 5,223MW, accounting for 11.12% of total generation capacity.
“This reflects a slight increase from the previous week and a 0.8% rise compared to the same period last year,” Eskom said.
The Energy Availability Factor (EAF) fluctuated between 63% and 69%, with the month-to-date average rising to 64.98%.
“These figures exclude Kusile Unit 6, which has been contributing 720MW to the national grid since 23 March 2025,” Eskom said.
“Although not yet in commercial operation, the unit is expected to reach that milestone by September 2025.”
As of Friday evening, available generation capacity stood at 30,442MW, with electricity demand expected to reach 25,378MW.
“The current capacity is sufficient to meet both today’s demand and anticipated requirements over the weekend.”
Overall 2025 performance still worse than 2024
Eskom has not implemented load-shedding since 15 May 2025. Since the start of its current financial year, there have been 26 hours of rotational power cuts.
Due to improvements over the last week, the year-to-date EAF has increased further to 60.56%. However, at the same time last year, the figure stood at 63.35%
Eskom said the difference was mainly due to a 2% increase in unplanned maintenance compared to the previous year.
Eskom also used less diesel-powered open-cycle gas turbines (OCGT) generation during the last week, with the load factor decreasing from 1.21% between 8 and 14 August to 0.78% from 15 to 21 August 2025.
While the year-to-date load factor for OCGTs has also decreased week-on-week by 0.4 percentage points to 8.53%, it remains higher than the 4.48% recorded during the same period last year.
“Over a period of approximately five months, from 1 April to 21 August 2025, Eskom spent R5.916 billion on fuel for its OCGT plants, generating 999.95GWh of electricity,” the power utility said.
“This represents a significant increase compared to the 525.44GWh produced during the same period last year.”
Eskom stressed that its diesel spend remained within budget and that expenditure on the fuel was not uniform throughout the year, with seasonal changes based on demand and operational requirements.
The power utility is planning to return 4,850MW of generation capacity to service ahead of the evening peak on Monday, 25 August 2025, and throughout the coming week.
The Winter Outlook — which indicates that load-shedding will not be necessary if unplanned outages stay below 13,000MW — remained valid.
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