South Africa marks a full year without load shedding

South Africa has reached a milestone that would have seemed unthinkable just three years ago: a full 12 consecutive months without a single bout of load shedding. The last time Eskom imposed rolling power cuts was in mid-May 2025, capping what has become the longest sustained period of grid stability in well over a decade.

The achievement marks a remarkable turnaround for the embattled state-owned power utility, which in 2023 imposed more than 300 days of load shedding and frequently resorted to stage-6 cuts that shaved billions of rand off economic output and crippled small businesses. By last year, the rolling power cuts had become sporadic; this year, they have been absent entirely.

Eskom attributes the recovery to its generation recovery plan, launched in April 2023, which prioritised intensive planned maintenance, a clampdown on unplanned breakdowns and a return to original equipment manufacturers for repairs at problem stations.

The plan has delivered an additional 4.4GW of available capacity compared with the same period last year, while the energy availability factor – Eskom’s headline reliability metric – has climbed steadily out of the 50-60% range that once defined its struggle.

The full commissioning of Kusile, the 4.8GW coal-fired station whose persistent unit failures contributed so much to past misery, has been a key driver. So, too, has the gradual ramp-down of the diesel-burning open-cycle gas turbines that previously kept the lights on at huge cost to the fiscus.

Private generation has also played a meaningful role. Tax incentives introduced in 2023 helped trigger a rooftop solar boom that has seen tens of thousands of South African households and businesses install behind-the-meter PV capacity, taking material load off the grid during daylight hours.

Licensing threshold

The lifting of the 100MW licensing threshold for private generation projects in 2022, followed by its complete removal, has also unlocked a wave of corporate wheeling agreements and private investment that now contributes to overall system stability alongside Eskom’s own recovery.

The recovery has also had political backing. Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2023 to coordinate the response to the energy crisis, has worked closely with the National Energy Crisis Committee and Eskom on the turnaround. The government of national unity formed after the 2024 elections has continued the reform agenda, including the structural unbundling of Eskom that delivered a separate National Transmission Company in 2024.

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But the recovery has come at a cost to consumers. Successive Nersa-approved tariff increases have lifted household and business electricity bills well above inflation since 2023, and Eskom is seeking further hikes to fund its grid investment programme.

Other concerns also persist. Eskom’s own medium-term system adequacy outlook, published in October last year, warned that rolling blackouts may return towards the end of the decade. The report flags the planned retirement of 5.3GW of coal capacity as the primary driver of a potential supply gap in 2029 and 2030.  – © 2026 NewsCentral Media