South Africa is currently experiencing the longest period without load shedding in the last five years.
This, according to Electricity and Energy Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, who briefed media on Monday.
Eskom has marked more than 270 days without implementing the rolling power outages, with load shedding last implemented in March this year.
“We are recording another milestone in that we are experiencing the longest stretch of uninterrupted power supply in five years. It is an important milestone. We are not celebrating the fact that we have not had load shedding for 272 days… We are simply marking the point that in terms of our quest to end load shedding, it’s important that we are able to take account of these small milestones.
“These are small steps that are going to be able to contribute to a giant leap that we want to achieve… to ensure that we have sufficient capacity that will support the growth of the South African economy,” Ramokgopa said.
Eskom has managed to reduce its unplanned outages by some 8% compared to last year – improving the generation performance of these stations.
The power utility has also recorded year-on-year diesel saving costs of at least R16 billion.
The Minister acknowledged the ongoing hard work by Eskom employees to turn around the fortunes of the power utility.
“We started from a low base. In the financial year 2024… we have seen the highest intensity of load shedding, in terms of the number of days and the number of hours that the country was subjected to periods of no electricity.
“[This], taken with the financial performance, Eskom recorded a significant loss but also is showing that as a result of improved performance, our projection is that we should be – at a minimum – achieving a surplus at the end of [this] financial year,” he said.
Ramokgopa said the “Eskom lessons” can be used to “generate a template on how [we] are able to recover from a very difficult situation”.
“It’s a template you can take to any of the SOEs [State-owned Enterprises]… of course, adapt it to the nuances of that particular SOE. But I think there are transversal experiences that can be drawn from the Eskom experience,” he said. – SAnews.gov.za
