Eskom sees dramatic decline in load shedding as turnaround gains momentum

Eskom has made significant progress in reducing load shedding, cutting outages from 84 days to just 17 days in the first eight months of 2025, Eskom Chairman Mteto Nyati said on Tuesday.

Nyati spoke during the PSG Think Big webinar, highlighting the utility’s ongoing turnaround efforts. Nyati, who was appointed chairman in 2022 alongside a new board, credited the improvements to a carefully planned and executed recovery strategy.

“We’ve done a lot of changes – we supported new management and came up with a two-year generation recovery plan which was approved by the board in March 2025,” he said.

“By March 2025, we wanted to be at the energy availability factor of 70%. Today, we are exactly at that. In fact, on many days, we’ve been above 70%.” 

The turnaround, Nyati added, has been driven by a “return to basics,” emphasizing regular maintenance, direct engagement with original equipment manufacturers, tighter budgeting for spares, and strict adherence to maintenance schedules.

“Discipline is something that we have brought back into Eskom,” he noted.

Nyati highlighted that South Africa now has around 12 000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity from independent power producers (IPPs) and households.

Responding to concerns about high-cost IPP contracts signed in the past, he said current agreements are significantly cheaper and are part of the utility’s strategy to reduce energy costs.

Cost efficiency remains a key focus. Eskom has launched a five-year Cost Optimisation and Revenue Enhancement programme aimed at cutting R112 billion in production costs.

Nyati also said the utility plans to align future tariff increases with consumer price inflation, signaling a shift from energy security to energy affordability.

“Eskom has reached the tipping point. In fact, as the board, we are very clear that going forward, we should not see tariff increases that are above consumer price inflation,” Nyati said.

“This aligns with Eskom’s next big mission of affordability. We are done with energy security. The next drive is energy affordability. That is what we are focussing on.”

Nyati added that competition concerns as private electricity traders enter the market saying that policy changes are required in order to “level the playing field. In terms of Eskom’s future business model, clean energy is a growing priority.

“Base load comes from your nuclear, hydro and coal but our strategic drive is to make sure that we provide clean energy in South Africa.That is the space that you are going to be finding us occupying and competing in.”

Nyati said that political alignment was a factor in Eskom’s turnaround.

“You need a minister that is aligned to the board and a board that is aligned to management. If you’ve got that alignment, you are not going to get anything wrong.”

Nyati added that as Eskom prepares to announce its financial results, the utility is moving closer to reaching its goals.

“Ultimately, our priority is to make sure that we leave behind a sustainable organisation, one that is not going to go back to the taxpayer and beg to bail us out. Which means we need to be able to stand on our own two feet.”

Nyathi said that Koeberg Nuclear Power Station Unit one is still expected to come online in October.

“It is an important capacity that we need as we move into summer because in summer we do most of our maintenance and we need as much capacity as possible for the maintenance that is required and prepare for Winter in 2026 and we expect it to come back online in October.”

BUSINESS REPORT