As South Africans reliant on Eskom's service continue to face the cold winter nights, the utility's current progress paints a hopeful picture.
According to Eskom, the utility's operational recovery is still yielding favourable outcomes, with enhanced generation performance allowing it to meet the growing demand for electricity during the winter while keeping sufficient reserves.
The utility said South Africa has now recorded over 406 consecutive days without load shedding since 16 May 2025. Its Winter Outlook, covering the period from 1 April to 31 August 2026, continues to project no load shedding.
For the financial year to date, from 1 April to 25 June 2026, Eskom's Energy Availability Factor (EAF) improved to 63.81%, up from 58.31% during the same period last year. Average unplanned outages also declined to 11,259MW between 19 and 25 June, compared with 14,801MW a year earlier.
Eskom said the improved performance has significantly reduced its reliance on diesel-fired generation. Diesel expenditure for the financial year to date fell to R746.41 million, an 84.19% reduction from R4.72 billion over the corresponding period last year.
