Eskom Announces 18 Months Load-Shedding-Free Milestone

Eskom CEO Dan Marokane announced that South Africa had reached 18 consecutive months without a single hour of load-shedding — a milestone that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago when the country endured over 200 days of rolling blackouts.

How It Was Achieved

The turnaround has been driven by the return to service of several long-offline coal units at Medupi and Kusile, the rapid build-out of private renewable energy under emergency REIPPP procurement rounds, and a significant increase in rooftop solar now estimated at over 7,000 MW of installed capacity nationally.

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) have also played a critical role in smoothing evening demand peaks, with over 1,500 MW of contracted storage now operational.

Still Fragile

Marokane was careful not to declare complete victory. "Our plant availability has improved dramatically, but the system remains technically constrained," he cautioned. "One major unexpected outage at a large unit could still cause disruption."

The Energy Availability Factor now stands at 68%, up from a catastrophic 54% in 2023, though still below the 75-80% target.

Economic Impact

The Federation of Unions of South Africa estimated the end of load-shedding has added approximately 0.8 percentage points to GDP growth. The informal sector, which suffered disproportionately during blackouts, has been among the biggest beneficiaries.