{"id":652862,"date":"2026-06-10T08:57:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T06:57:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=652862"},"modified":"2026-06-10T08:58:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T06:58:31","slug":"top-south-african-mobile-network-not-taking-any-chances-with-eskom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/652862-top-south-african-mobile-network-not-taking-any-chances-with-eskom.html","title":{"rendered":"Top South African mobile network not taking any chances with Eskom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MTN South Africa told MyBroadband that backup power systems remained critical to its operations, despite the end of load shedding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent feedback, the mobile network operator elaborated on the role of its solar, battery, and generator solutions at many of its towers, also known as base stations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These systems ensured network resilience, maintained service availability, and reduced reliance on the national grid during periods of instability, which remained critical to maintaining continuous service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“While load-shedding has eased over the past year, grid instability, intermittent outages, severe weather events, and infrastructure challenges continue to impact power availability in many areas,” MTN said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“As a result, these energy solutions remain critical and are actively utilised on a daily basis to support the network and ensure continuity of service.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN said the energy generated from its solar systems was largely consumed internally at MTN sites and not fed back into the grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Batteries are used to support hybrid operation during outages, helping to reduce generator run time, fuel consumption, and operating costs,” MTN said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Generators continue to play an important role where outages are prolonged, or infrastructure is damaged.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The network operator confirmed that it doesn’t materially feed excess energy into the national grid and doesn’t receive credits for exporting power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The current focus is on optimising on-site consumption and improving efficiency across the network,” MTN said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Looking ahead, MTN is exploring scalable solutions such as virtual wheeling with independent power producers, which could enable broader optimisation of renewable energy usage.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MTN added that these investments continued to support its core objective of providing a reliable, resilient network for consumers, while improving cost efficiency and reducing environmental impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Eskom’s generating fleet reliability has improved over the last two years, its tariffs have continued to increase above inflation, pushing businesses towards adopting and scaling self-generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Demand reduction equivalent to four stages of load-shedding<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

South Africa reached 365 days without load-shedding on 16 May 2026, the longest reprieve in the power cuts since 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom said the milestone marked a decisive turning point and a structural shift from a recovering grid to a stable, high-performing power system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This moment has been three years in the making since the inception of the generation recovery plan,” Eskom board chair Mteto Nyati said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Eskom’s employees have again delivered using their deep technical and institutional capacity built over decades of public investment that remains a critical part of our national capacity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom’s claim that the reduction in load-shedding was due to its generation recovery plan is highly contested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electricity demand on Eskom’s grid has been significantly reduced thanks to the proliferation of private power generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although Eskom’s average Energy Availability Factor (EAF) has improved by about 10 percentage points since 2023, the figure is still far below its historical annual average.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At roughly 65% for the year ending March 2026, the EAF was at a similar level to 2020, when Eskom implemented 859 hours of load shedding, cutting 1,798 gigawatt-hours of demand from the grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2026 year-to-date, Eskom’s average hourly electricity demand has been about 4,000MW lower than it was five years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two factors drove this drop. Many industrial facilities, including smelters and factories, were forced to close due to unsustainable operating costs, which included high electricity prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, adoption of privately generated electricity, primarily from solar power, has surged in the last few years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 2018 and the first quarter of 2026, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) registered over 19,300MW of large-scale private electricity generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom added less than half of that capacity over the same period, with the completion of the coal-fired Medupi and Kusile power plants. These had been under construction for nearly two decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN South Africa said its solar, battery, and generator backups as cellular towers were still critical to its operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":652891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,27995],"tags":[63222,3664,57004,13871,28392,59903,181,27481,8487,42,19188,24030,4922],"class_list":["post-652862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","category-energy","tag-backup-power","tag-batteries","tag-cellular-base-stations","tag-electricity2","tag-electricity-prices","tag-electricity-tariffs","tag-eskom","tag-generators","tag-load-shedding","tag-mtn","tag-mtn-south-africa","tag-power-cuts","tag-solar-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652862"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":652996,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652862\/revisions\/652996"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}