South Africa Marks 168 Consecutive Days Without Load Shedding
JOHANNESBURG, 2 November 2025. South Africa recorded 168 consecutive days without electricity load shedding on Sunday, the state power utility Eskom announced, marking one of the longest uninterrupted supply periods in recent memory and highlighting a sustained recovery in the national grid.
South Africa Marks 168 Consecutive Days Without Load Shedding
JOHANNESBURG, 2 November 2025. South Africa recorded 168 consecutive days without electricity load shedding on Sunday, the state power utility Eskom announced, marking one of the longest uninterrupted supply periods in recent memory and highlighting a sustained recovery in the national grid.
Eskom reported that only 26 hours of load shedding had been implemented during the current financial year, confined to brief episodes in April and May 2025. The utility attributed the improvement to its Generation Recovery Plan, which has focused on reducing unplanned outages and increasing the Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of its coal-fired fleet.
According to Eskom's Summer Outlook, published on 5 September 2025 and covering the period 1 September 2025 to 31 March 2026, the utility projected no load shedding for the remainder of the summer season, citing sustained gains in plant reliability and declining diesel expenditure on open-cycle gas turbines, which had previously been used as an expensive emergency backup measure.
Year-on-year comparisons showed unplanned outages had fallen sharply, with Eskom's EAF rising to levels not seen since the early 2010s. The utility did not specify an exact megawatt figure in its 2 November statement but confirmed the grid remained stable heading into the high-demand summer period.
The milestone carries significant economic implications for South Africa. Load shedding had cost the economy an estimated tens of billions of rand annually in lost output across sectors including manufacturing, retail, and agriculture. Business chambers and investment promotion bodies had previously cited power supply uncertainty as a primary deterrent to fixed capital investment.
South Africa experienced severe and prolonged load shedding between 2008 and early 2024, at times reaching Stage 6, the most intensive level, during which up to 6,000 megawatts were rotated off the grid. The turnaround under the Generation Recovery Plan, accelerated by political pressure following the 2024 general elections, began to show measurable results from mid-2024 onward.