Good news for winter load shedding in South Africa

While Experts and members of Parliament have raised concerns about load shedding returning this winter, South Africa’s Electricity Minister says Eskom is in a better position than it was last year.

On Friday, 25 April, Eskom management appeared before Parliament’s Electricity and Energy Committee to present its five-year corporate plan and budget.

However, this was a day after the power utility implemented stage 2 load shedding due to higher-than-expected electricity demand, the loss of generation units, and extensive planned maintenance.

Committee Members slammed Eskom and said the sudden implementation shows that the utility is not on top of things.

Following the return of load shedding, the committee members were very concerned and worried about winter. 

Several energy experts, including Chris Yelland and Anton Eberhard, also share this concern about load shedding in winter. 

Eberhard highlighted that Eskom’s energy availability factor averaged 55% and 58% this year, which was way below the utility’s generation recovery plan.

According to Eskom’s latest figures, from 1 to 24 April 2025, the year-to-date EAF stood at 56.36%, a far cry from the promised 70% by March 2025.

“Diesel-fired power stations’ use has peaked, and emergency plants have been running hard recently,” Eberhard said.

Eberhard hinted that this data showed that more load shedding and power cuts were imminent in South Africa.

Yelland also said Eskom’s lower-than-expected EAF raised concerns over load shedding during winter.

“If EAF does not significantly increase as demand increases with the onset of colder weather, we will likely experience some load shedding,” he said.

Eskom is expected to present its winter outlook soon, outlining the expected load shedding levels and various scenarios for the coming winter months.

Good signs for winter load shedding

Despite the concerns, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa expects the country’s power plants to perform at the same capacity they did last winter.

Speaking at the G20 Energy Transitions Working Group meeting in Cape Town this week, Ramokgopa said he expects power station performance to match last year’s levels, despite some recent concerns. 

“There’s no reason for performance to regress,” he said, citing ongoing work by Eskom and increased generation capacity.

Ramokgopa highlighted that several major units are either already back online or will return soon, which is expected to boost capacity significantly. 

“When we went into winter last year, we didn’t have Kusile Unit 6—that’s 800 MW. We didn’t have Medupi Unit 4 either, which we will have by the end of May, another 800 MW,” he said.

Ramokgopa added that the utility expects Koeberg Unit 1 to return around July. “Altogether, the grid is expected to have an additional 2,500 MW available compared to last winter.”

While April saw less-than-ideal energy availability, the minister stressed that the issues have been identified and are being addressed. 

“One of the reasons we found for lower energy availability was post-outage failure. You take the unit out for planned maintenance, and it still has significant challenges when it comes back,” Ramokgopa said.

“The team is addressing that. So I don’t foresee that we will perform below what we did last year.” 

Echoing this cautious confidence, energy analyst Chris Yelland pointed to recent improvements in Eskom’s operational data. 

Although the energy availability factor (EAF) remains low at around 57%, he noted that Eskom has ramped up planned maintenance to the highest level in three years for this time of year.

He said this proactive approach is starting to pay off. Breakdowns have declined, and unplanned outages—including generator failures and load losses—have dropped to 26% over the past three weeks.

Yelland added that the latest system outlook represents a significant improvement from earlier this year when winter load-shedding seemed almost inevitable. 

With better performance and key generation units returning to service, both Ramokgopa and Yelland suggest Eskom is in a stronger position to keep the lights on in the months ahead.