WATCH | Eskom achieves longest streak without load shedding in five years

Kgosientsho Ramokgopa

Cape Town – Eskom has marked a significant achievement by going its longest period in five years without implementing load shedding, with no rolling blackouts since 26 March 2024.

Minister of Electricity and Energy, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, attributed this success to the resilience of the government’s Energy Action Plan and Eskom’s Generation Recovery Plan.

While acknowledging the improvements, he emphasised that load shedding still requires ongoing attention and intervention.

“This means two things: load shedding is still an area that requires intervention. I have said that at the right time, when we are meant to call it, we’ll [say] its over but I’m not in a position to make that firm pronouncement.

“The second message this conveys is that the interventions are resilient. By that I mean that even if you have a cluster of units failing, the system is able to carry itself without us having to resort to load shedding. That’s important because it means that we have built some degree head space to allow for incidents where clusters of units fail,” he said.

Ramokgopa said that Eskom had reduced the number of megawatts unavailable from 16,400MW last year to about 11,235MW, reflecting a 7.3% improvement in energy availability.

Additionally, Eskom spent R15 billion less than the previous year, which will reduce future electricity supply costs. Despite these gains, the government is maintaining planned maintenance, with 6,900MW of planned maintenance for the summer.

Regarding the Draft Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2023, Ramokgopa shared that the government had received over 4,300 public comments and engaged with stakeholders in multiple rounds of consultations.

The department is reviewing substantive feedback and will refine the plan before presenting a final version to Cabinet for approval.

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