No more load-shedding

Following the recovery of the generation capacity and replenishment of emergency reserves, Eskom suspended load-shedding at 05:00 on Wednesday morning.

On Saturday, 22 February 2025, at 17:30, Eskom announced that it started implementing Stage 3 load-shedding with immediate effect.

Eskom blamed the rolling blackouts on a temporary setback after 20  days of uninterrupted electricity supply.

On Sunday, 23 February 2025, at 01:57, Eskom announced that Stage 6 load-shedding was implemented at 01:30.

It blamed the sudden escalation in load-shedding on multiple unit trips at Camden Power Station. It said stage 6 load-shedding would continue until further notice.

It revealed that there were also multiple unit trips at Majuba Power Station and a unit trip at the Medupi power station.

On Monday, Eskom implemented Stage 4 load-shedding until further notice, a small improvement from Stage 6.

The reduction in outages follows the recovery of all five units at the Majuba power plant, two at Camden and one at Medupi.

On Tuesday, Eskom announced that load-shedding was reduced to stage 2 at 05:00 after successfully recovering eight out of ten generation units.

On Wednesday, Eskom announced that load-shedding was suspended following the recovery of generation capacity and the replenishment of emergency reserves.

“We maintain our guidance that load-shedding is largely behind us due to structural improvements in the generation fleet,” Eskom CEO Dan Marokane said.

He added that their focus remains on eliminating load-shedding as a structural constraint on the economy.

“There will be valuable lessons to be learned from the set of multiple unit trips that were unconnected,” he said.

“They were purely technical in nature related to electrical and control system issues within auxiliary parts of our power stations.”

Eskom Group Executive for Generation, Bheki Nxumal,  said they remain committed to high maintenance levels, and this strategy’s results are clear.

“Our efforts have delivered a 99% electricity availability rate over Eskom’s current financial year, from 1 April 2024 to 21 February 2025,” he explained.

“Ongoing planned maintenance stands at 6,660MW in alignment with our summer period maintenance strategy.”

He said it is at increased levels to prepare for winter and meet license and regulatory requirements.

“We reaffirm our commitment to ensuring that South Africa will not return to the severe levels of load-shedding experienced in 2023,” Nxumalo said.