Eskom has spent R1.26 billion on diesel since April, R4.81 billion less than a year earlier, it said in its weekly update on 6 November 2026.
Year-to-date energy availability reached 68.16% for 1 April to 5 November. That compares with 63.21% a year earlier, and Eskom said it is the highest for that period in six years.
Eskom said it has recovered about 6,481MW of capacity compared with three years ago. Average unplanned outages fell from 16,167MW to 9,092MW over that time, and year-to-date unplanned capacity losses were 18.93%, which Eskom described as 6.05% lower year on year.
Open-cycle gas turbines, which burn diesel, did not run at all in the past week. Generation from them since April was 163.95GWh, about 84% below last year, and their load factor is 0.92% against a target annual load factor of 3%.
“South Africa has now recorded 539 consecutive days without loadshedding since 16 May 2025,” Eskom said in the statement.
Source: Eskom weekly power system update, 6 November 2026. Chart: Rand Desk
The latest week compared less well with a year ago. Availability for 30 October to 5 November averaged 69.53% against 70.66%, unplanned outages rose to 18.41% from 16.82%, and planned maintenance averaged 12.04% against 12.25%. For the year to date, planned maintenance is higher than last year, at 12.75% of capacity against 11.35%.
Eskom said it has about 6,855MW of available capacity above demand, and it forecast an evening peak of 22,353MW against 25,278MW available, excluding gas. It said that headroom could serve energy-intensive industry, new investment and export sales.
Year-to-date relative particulate emissions to the end of September stayed within the 0.35kg/MWhSO target, Eskom said. It also said 57% of the coal fleet is running at availability between 60% and 93%.
Round-the-clock monitoring continues to support the Independent Electoral Commission process, Eskom said, and supply is stable in all provinces. It named incidents in Mpumalanga and weather disruption in KwaZulu-Natal.
Load reduction, the targeted cutting of supply in areas with high theft and illegal connections, now covers 102,551 customers. That is down from about 1.69 million, a fall of 94%, and seven of the nine provinces are free of it. Eskom said it has taken 627 of the 971 feeders targeted off load reduction and aims to end it by March 2027.
Eskom has installed 526,689 smart meters on those feeders, 91% of the 577,347 target. It said safety incidents, intimidation and work stoppages have delayed more than 122,000 planned installations.
For earlier figures see our report on electricity generation in September and our explainer on how load-shedding stages work. Eskom’s next update is due on Friday, 13 November 2026.
