Eskom recorded a daily energy availability factor (EAF) of 80.24% on 20 July, its best single day since 20 September 2017.

The financial year-to-date EAF stands at 66.22%, an improvement of 6.97 percentage points year on year but still short of the 70% Eskom has set as its recovery benchmark.

The daily record also owes something to timing: Eskom eases off planned maintenance during peak winter demand, and the planned capacity loss factor for the week to 23 July was 7.19%, down from 10.74% a year earlier. Fewer units in for repair means more available to dispatch, which flatters the daily reading. Over the year as a whole, Eskom has done more maintenance, not less, averaging 12.28% of capacity against 11.13%.

The substantive improvement is in what stopped breaking: on 19 July, unplanned outages dropped to 5.89GW, the lowest daily level since 2 July 2018. Across the week they averaged 7.07GW against 11.84GW a year earlier. The unplanned capacity loss factor (UCLF), which measures how much of the fleet is sidelined by breakdowns, improved to 14.94% from 24.66%.

Eskom put that year-on-year improvement at 4.25GW, or 35.9%. Its own averages say otherwise: 11.84GW less 7.07GW is 4.77GW, or 40.3%. Cross-checked against the UCLF percentages, both weekly averages imply a fleet of roughly 47-48GW, which is about right — so the averages are sound and the 4.25GW is the outlier.

Diesel spending plunges

Eskom’s arithmetic held up in the two preceding updates. For the week to 2 July, it reported a reduction of 5.13GW against averages of 9.85GW and 14.98GW; for the week to 9 July, 5.22GW against 8.4GW and 13.62GW. Both subtract correctly. The week to 23 July does not.

The correction cuts in Eskom’s favour. The utility described the reduction as almost equivalent to the capacity of a large power station “such as Kusile”, which produces 4.8GW at full output. At 4.77GW, that comparison is close to exact. At 4.25GW, it is not.

The breakdown figures show up directly in what Eskom is no longer spending. The utility has spent R807.4-million on diesel in the financial year to date, down from R5.62-billion over the same period last year, an 85.6% reduction. Between 17 and 23 July, it burnt no diesel at all.

Its diesel-fired open-cycle gas turbines have run at a load factor of 1.14% for the year to date, against 10.28% last year and well within the budgeted 3%.

Eskom counted 434 consecutive days without load shedding as at 23 July, dating back to 16 May 2025, and says demand has been met 100% of the time this financial year. Its winter outlook, published on 22 April, projects no load shedding through to 31 August.

Load reduction, the localised cuts Eskom applies in areas where illegal connections and meter tampering have overloaded local networks, is receding on a slower curve.

Six provinces are now clear and about 1.2 million customers have come off the schedules, or about 70% of the 1.7 million targeted, following the one million milestone earlier this month. A seventh province is due to be cleared by October, with nationwide eradication targeted for 2027. — © 2026 NewsCentral Media