Staff Reporter
Eskom has removed more than 700,000 households from load reduction, but Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal will only be fully cleared in 2027 because of higher risks on their electricity networks.
The power utility said in a statement posted on Monday that 714,513 customers – about 42% of households targeted under its load-reduction programme, – were no longer affected. It said 436 feeders had been removed from load reduction against a planned target of 971, reflecting progress of about 45%.
Eskom has not been implemented national load-shedding for 385 consecutive days.
The utility said it plans to end load reduction in seven provinces by October 2026, with Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal to follow in 2027 because of “higher grid risks and bigger challenges”.
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Load reduction is used in high-risk areas to protect transformers and mini-substations from failure where networks are overloaded, often because of illegal connections and electricity theft.
Eskom direct customers faced new tariffs from April, while municipal tariff increases are due from July 1.
It said 3,903MW of generation capacity would be brought online ahead of the evening peak on Monday, 8 June. Peak demand on Friday was forecast at 26,248MW, with available capacity at 30,533MW.
Eskom said its financial year-to-date energy availability factor, from 1 April to 4 June, had improved to 63.05%, up from 57.67% over the same period last year. It said unplanned outages between 29 May and 4 June had dropped to 9,252MW from 14,907MW in the corresponding period last year.
The utility said its unplanned capacity loss factor improved to 19.57% from 30.76% over the same period, while year-to-date diesel use had fallen. Open-cycle gas turbine generation declined to 70.751GWh, with diesel costs falling to R565.57 million, down from R3.652 billion in the same period last year. Eskom said this reflected reduced reliance on diesel-fired generation as plant performance improved.
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It said it had deployed 1.68 million smart meters nationwide, including 295,462 on feeders affected by load reduction. About 92% of those meters were concentrated in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and KwaZulu-Natal, where network risks were highest.
However, the utility said more than 122,000 planned meter conversions had been delayed because of community resistance, including “intimidation, violent incidents and repeated work stoppages”.
It said 577,061 customers were registered for Free Basic Electricity nationally, which had increased by 19% after 485,000 customers were transferred to its online platform.
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