Staff Reporter
Eskom said its diesel expenditure had fallen by more than 83% in the current financial year as improved power station performance reduced its reliance on diesel-fired generation.
In its weekly power system update issued on Friday, the utility said it spent R989.88 million on diesel between 1 April and 13 August 2026, compared with R5.89 billion over the same period last year.
The Open-Cycle Gas Turbine (OCGT) load factor fell to 1.15% from 9.08% during the corresponding period, while electricity generated by the plants declined by about 87.32% to 126.26GWh.
“This has translated into an 83.20% reduction in diesel expenditure and provides further evidence that sustained improvements in fleet performance are strengthening system reliability,” Eskom said.
The reduced diesel use comes as its Energy Availability Factor (EAF), a measure of how much of its generation fleet is available to produce electricity, reached its strongest level in six years.
Eskom said its financial year-to-date EAF, measured from 1 April to 13 August, had risen to 67.55% from 60.2% over the corresponding period last year.
It is the highest financial year-to-date EAF recorded since 25 October 2020, according to the utility.
Compared with the same period three years ago, Eskom said its EAF had improved by 12%, returning about 6.1GW of generating capacity to the grid. More than 71% of the coal fleet was currently operating at EAF levels of between 71% and 93%.
The improvement has coincided with a decline in breakdowns. Between 7 and 13 August, average unplanned outages fell to 6,653MW from 11,982MW during the corresponding period last year, a reduction of 5,329MW, or 44.5%.
The Unplanned Capacity Loss Factor improved from 25.11% to 14.07% over the same period.
Eskom said planned maintenance remained higher than last year as it continued work aimed at improving the long-term reliability of the generation fleet. The Planned Capacity Loss Factor averaged 12.79% between 7 and 13 August, compared with 11.40% during the same period last year.
The utility also had 3,363MW in cold reserve because of excess capacity.
South Africa has now recorded 455 consecutive days without load shedding since 16 May 2025, while electricity demand has been met 100% of the time during the current financial year.
The utility maintained its winter outlook, published in April, which projected no load shedding for the period to 31 August.
While load shedding has remained suspended, Eskom has continued implementing load reduction in areas where electricity infrastructure is under pressure from illegal connections, meter tampering and network overloading.
The Eastern Cape has become the seventh province to be completely removed from load reduction schedules, leaving affected areas in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal still subject to the intervention.
“Seven provinces are now load reduction-free, with over 1.2 million customers no longer impacted, representing approximately 71% of the households originally targeted for intervention,” Eskom said.
A total of 566 feeders have been removed from load reduction, representing about 58% of the 971 feeders targeted under Eskom’s programme to eliminate the practice by 2027.
Gauteng remains the biggest area of intervention, with 244 feeders removed from load reduction, representing 40.4% of its target of 604 feeders.
A further 130 feeders had been removed in the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal, or 67.4% of their combined target of 193, with the Free State achieving complete elimination.
Eskom said load reduction was not the result of insufficient national generation capacity.
“Although the power system remains stable and generation capacity continues to exceed demand, illegal connections and meter tampering persist in certain localised areas, driving infrastructure damage and posing serious safety risks,” it said.
The utility has installed 505,607 smart meters on load reduction feeders, reaching 87.5% of its target of 577,347 installations in high-priority areas.
About 81% of the installations are concentrated in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, where Eskom said network pressure was highest.
However, resistance in some communities, including safety incidents, intimidation and work stoppages, had delayed the programme, affecting more than 122,000 planned installations.
Eskom is also expanding registrations for Free Basic Electricity. It said 556,409 customers were registered, an increase of about 15% from a baseline of 485,000, representing about 28% of the estimated 2.1 million customers eligible for the benefit.
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