By: OrePulse

South Africa's state power utility Eskom said its generation fleet's Energy Availability Factor (EAF) reached 67.96% for the financial year to date through September 17, 2026, the highest level the utility has recorded in six years, while diesel expenditure fell by R4.8 billion. The share of customers affected by load reduction dropped to 3.4%.

The EAF figure, covering the period from April 1 to September 17, 2026, rose 5.79 percentage points to 62.17% from the same period a year earlier. For the week of September 11 to 17 alone, the EAF stood even higher, at 72.74%.

Eskom attributed the gain largely to fewer unplanned breakdowns. The utility's unplanned capacity loss factor fell to 19.23%, up 6.92 percentage points from the prior year. Roughly 3,100 megawatts of generation capacity has been returned to the grid so far this financial year, part of a cumulative 6,202 megawatts restored over the past three years.

The reduced reliance on unplanned generation translated directly into lower use of costly diesel-fired open-cycle gas turbines, which utilities typically run only to plug short-term shortfalls. Diesel spending dropped 80.95%, falling from R5.93 billion a year earlier to R1.13 billion, while the load factor on those turbines slid from 7.25% to just 1.06%. Eskom also reported that particulate-matter emissions improved to 0.32 kilograms per megawatt-hour sent out, beating its annual target.

On load reduction — the utility's term for planned, localised supply cuts distinct from nationwide loadshedding — Eskom said roughly 1.4 million customers have now been restored to normal supply, representing 86% of a targeted 1.69 million. The customers still affected by load reduction now number 247,617, or 3.4% of Eskom's total customer base, down sharply from previous levels. Seven of South Africa's provinces are now entirely free of load reduction, and Eskom has removed 578 of 971 targeted feeders from load-reduction status. Eskom also said it has installed 513,648 smart meters, 89% of its high-priority installation target, as part of the program to manage and eventually eliminate load reduction by March 2027.

The operational gains build on a broader run of grid stability. South Africa has now gone 490 consecutive days without nationwide load-shedding, a stretch dating back to May 16, 2025. Eskom put current available generation capacity at 27,500 megawatts, well above an evening peak demand of 22,081 megawatts, and said a further 8,716 megawatts remains in cold reserve — a buffer the utility will lean on as demand typically rises heading into the country's summer months.

The Energy Availability Factor measures the proportion of Eskom's total generation capacity that is available to produce electricity at any given time, making it a closely watched gauge of the utility's underlying reliability. A sustained rise in the metric, combined with steep cuts in diesel use, points to a fleet that breaks down less often and needs fewer emergency interventions to keep the lights on. Eskom did not give a specific timeline for closing the remaining gap on load reduction beyond its stated March 2027 target, and said work on restoring the remaining flagged feeders and completing smart-meter rollout would continue in the coming months.