Eskom has firmed up the timing of its long-awaited decision on the future of five of South Africa’s oldest coal-fired power stations, saying it will decide by the end of September on whether to proceed with their orderly shutdown, repowering or repurposing — with the call hinging on whether new generation capacity can be contractually secured in time to protect security of supply.
The stations in question — Camden, Grootvlei, Hendrina, Arnot and Kriel — were granted minimum emission standards exemptions by the environment department in 2024 to keep operating until 31 March 2030.
The utility flagged the looming decision in its 2026 winter outlook, published on Wednesday, which projects no load shedding between 1 April and 31 August on the back of a 6GW surplus in peak capacity and significantly improved generation reliability. South Africa has now gone 341 consecutive days without load shedding.
But Eskom warned that the gains achieved since March 2023 should not be taken for granted, and that the timing of any coal retirements would be tested against an “evidence-based assessment” of whether replacement capacity from renewables, gas and storage will arrive on schedule.
“Eskom, and in turn South Africa, now has a stable electricity platform to operate and grow from. This allows us to integrate renewable energy sources as per the 2025 integrated resource plan (IRP) for the maintenance of energy security in the future,” said Eskom group CEO Dan Marokane in a statement on Wednesday.
“Eskom is consciously assessing the new capacity build rate across all required technologies as this, along with other socioeconomic conditions, will be vital in determining the transition of the coal-fired power stations.”
Shortfall
The IRP2025, gazetted on 28 October 2025, sets out a combined Eskom and independent power producer requirement of about 10.3GW of solar PV, 7.4GW of wind, 3.7GW of energy storage and 6GW of gas by 2030 to maintain energy security as ageing coal capacity is retired.
However, Eskom noted that only about half of the renewable projects awarded grid allocation and offtake agreements since IRP2019 have actually been built – a shortfall it described as a critical risk to supply adequacy between 2029 and 2030, in line with the National Transmission Company South Africa’s medium-term system adequacy outlook.
Dispatchable, baseload gas-to-power available continuously was singled out as a particularly important enabler for large-scale renewable integration. Until that capacity is “contractually secured and demonstrably available”, Eskom said it would continue to operate and maintain the five older coal stations.
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The improved winter outlook is underpinned by a 5.2GW reduction in unplanned losses and a further 1.1GW from demand-side management. Eskom has cut its base-case assumption for unplanned outages to about 12GW, from 13GW in the previous outlook, and said the system should remain stable even if unplanned losses climb towards 14GW.
The energy availability factor improved to about 65.35% in the 2026 financial year from 54.55% in FY2023, reaching or exceeding 70% on more than 83 occasions during FY2026.
Diesel spend on the open-cycle gas turbine fleet dropped to about R6.4-billion in FY2026, R26.9-billion lower than in FY2023 and roughly R10-billion below FY2025. Eskom recorded a 2.1% year-on-year improvement in pre-tax profit and a 1.6% improvement in Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation), subject to audit finalisation, and was upgraded by Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings in what it described as its first credit upgrade in more than a decade.
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Eskom is also accelerating the elimination of load reduction at community level. The Northern Cape and Western Cape have been removed entirely from load reduction schedules, and more than 340 000 customers nationally are no longer affected. The roll-out of more than 600 000 smart meters is supporting the programme. By September 2026, about 60% of feeders currently subject to load reduction should be removed from the schedules, with the balance addressed progressively through 2027. – (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
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