Eskom has a big problem

Eskom continues to struggle with unplanned outages at its power plants, even during load-shedding-free periods, and energy supply continues to be a top concern among local business leaders.

PwC’s latest South Africa Economic Outlook, released on 26 March 2025, explained that South Africa was without electricity load-shedding for most of the past year. 

This was largely due to Eskom’s commendable efforts under its Generation Recovery Plan, which resulted in the suspension of planned power cuts in March 2024.

However, despite the suspension of load-shedding a year ago, business leaders still viewed energy supply shortages as a major risk for 2025/26 when surveyed in September and October 2024. 

In fact, PwC said South African business leaders identified energy supply shortages as their primary risk factor for the economy during 2025/26. 

“In other words, half a year after load-shedding was suspended, business leaders were not convinced that planned power cuts were a thing of the past,” the firm said. 

“And justifiably so: for most of the load-shedding-free period, Eskom’s unplanned outages were, on average, nearly 12,000 MW.”

PwC explained that this indicates a lingering and large burden of unexpected breakdowns – about a quarter of the utility’s installed capacity. 

EE Business Intelligence managing director Chris Yelland recently published the latest weekly statistics of Eskom’s performance.

He explained that, compared to 2024, Eskom’s planned maintenance outages remain consistently below those for the same period last year.

However, he pointed out that unplanned outages remain stubbornly high at 28% of the Eskom fleet, and the utility’s energy availability factor remains stubbornly below 59% so far this year to date.

PwC said the sporadic return of load-shedding in 2025 so far up to Stage 5 again highlights the unpredictability of electricity reliability.

So far, South Africa has experienced 13 days of load-shedding in 2025, and all of these instances were announced at the last minute, as unplanned outages were behind the insufficient supply.

In early March this year, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said the country’s electricity grid remains vulnerable due to unplanned breakdowns at existing plants and delays in bringing new ones online.

“Even as I speak to you now, the system is under tremendous strain,” Ramokgopa told Bloomberg. 

Keeping the power supply stable is one of the things that “give me sleepless nights”, he said.

More energy problems

PwC explained that wider considerations other than just Eskom contributed to business leaders’ concerns about South Africa’s energy supply. 

Specifically, local business leaders are also concerned over the supply of jet fuel and gas during 2025/26. 

The firm explained that South Africa has grown more dependent on imported fuels, including jet fuel and gas, and equipment for supplying energy. 

According to data from PwC’s Net Zero Economy Index 2024, oil and gas accounted for 26% of South Africa’s energy mix in 2023, up from 22% in 2020.

This reflected the increased usage of alternative energy sources such as diesel in the generation of electricity at household, commercial, retail and industrial levels.

This trend mostly came about as a way for investors in these technologies to avoid load-shedding on the national power grid. 

Worryingly, PwC said South Africa’s net energy imports nearly halved from -1,001 petajoules in 2020 to -565 petajoules in 2022, with a smaller negative number indicating that the country is a declining net exporter of energy. 

The firm explained that this, in turn, is due largely to rising energy-related imports. 

One petajoule is equivalent to 278 gigawatt-hours of electricity or the equivalent content of about 24 million litres of petrol.

Another concern for South Africa’s energy mix is that locally produced coal accounted for 69% of the country’s energy mix in 2023, down from 74% in 2020. 

This has made South Africa more import-dependent and vulnerable to external supply disruptions for fuels and equipment to power its homes and businesses.