Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has fingered cumulative outage slippages of 3 100 MW as the reason behind South Africa’s latest bout of loadshedding – the sixth this year.

Speaking after Eskom announced the implementation of Stage 2 loadshedding during the evening peaks from 16:00 to 22:00 from Tuesday May 13 until Thursday May 15, Ramokgopa described the new round of cuts as a “setback”.

He attributed the slippages to inadequate planning by Eskom, as well as some capacity problems at the original-equipment manufacturers that implement the maintenance on behalf of the utility.

Nevertheless, Ramokgopa still stressed that recent developments were in line with Eskom’s winter outlook, published on May 5, which indicated that loadshedding could be implemented should unplanned breakdowns rise above 13 000 MW.

The base case was for breakdowns to remain below that threshold, however.

On May 13, unplanned losses breached 15 000 MW, as a result of more than 11 900 MW of breakdowns and the fact that 3 100 MW had not been returned to service as scheduled from planned maintenance.

Eskom CEO Dan Marokane confirmed that outage slippages were experienced on two units at Duvha, as well as at Grootvlei, Kriel, Medupi and Tutuka and said urgent efforts were under way to bring the units back as soon as possible.

He described the current period as particularly challenging from an outage slippage perspective, as Eskom was still in the process of tapering planned maintenance ahead of the high-demand winter months but still had more than 4 000 MW on scheduled outages.

HIGHER DIESEL USE

Marokane said the diesel-fuelled open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) were being deployed as planned for six hours daily during the peak periods, and denied any suggestion that these were being used sparingly to save on diesel costs.

He admitted, however, that OCGT usage during the summer maintenance campaign was probably higher than the comparative period last year, but highlighted that Eskom had also conducted more maintenance than during the comparative period.

Between September 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025, Eskom had spent R12.4-billion on diesel against a budget of R10.3-billion for the period.

However, Marokane stressed, the overall use of diesel for the full financial year had moderated.

Eskom has reported previously that its spending on diesel fell by R16-billion in the 2024/25 financial year when compared with the 2023/24 financial year.

“The fact remains that, when you look at the last period, we have seen significant savings in diesel costs.

“What’s happened in the last three to four weeks may come out as higher consumption than the previous period, but it does not necessarily follow that you can extrapolate that information to say that is going to be the case for the rest of the year,” Marokane asserted.