Eskom CEO Dan Marokane has indicated that the State-owned utility is planning to “smooth” its maintenance profile over a longer horizon to avoid the security-of-supply risks currently associated with the concentration of maintenance in the summer months.

Speaking at the release of a winter outlook, where Eskom’s base case is for a loadshedding-free period from April 1 to August 31, Marokane acknowledged the difficulties faced last summer, when 14 days where affected by rotational cuts, breaking a 300-plus-day period when no loadshedding was implemented.

In February, Eskom even resorted to Stage 6 loadshedding after multiple units tripped across various coal stations, while multiple units were out for planned summer maintenance.

Chairperson Mteto Nyati said Eskom was not proud of the period between January and April, reporting that the five loadshedding episodes during the period had led to a board-level interrogation of the causes, which he said could be attributed primarily to people-related failures.

Nyati said remedial actions were being taken, particularly at the leadership level, to arrest the decline and consolidate a high-performance culture.

Marokane said the introduction of additional capacity at Medupi and Kusile, together with the finalisation in July of another extended outage at Koeberg Unit 1 as part of additional actions required following its 20-year life extension approval, should provide Eskom with space to spread out maintenance in future.

Group executive for generation Bheki Nxumalo said that the outage slips during summer were attributable to the enlarged scope of some projects to include environmental upgrades, as well as capacity constraints, including within its supplier base.

The division was, thus, working on a different plan for the next outage cycle.

“We are talking with the team about planning differently for summer now. At least in winter we are dealing with one variable, which is the cold. Summer you are dealing with high planned maintenance and changing weather conditions, which makes it very difficult to recover once the units are off,” Nxumalo said.

The slippages, as well as the repair of the Kusile units that were using temporary stacks after a flue collapse, resulted in Eskom failing to achieving its 65% energy availability factor (EAF) target by the end of March.

Marokane reported a 61% EAF for the financial year that ended on March 31 and announced a R16-billion, or 50%, reduction in spending on diesel during the year. However, diesel use had increased materially in the first few months of 2025 to close the gaps created by planned maintenance and unplanned events.

He was more bullish about the outlook, though, stating that no loadshedding was expected this winter, if unplanned losses remained below 13 GW.

At worst, 21 days of up to Stage 2 loadshedding would be implemented should unplanned losses reach 15 GW.