Eskom reported on Friday that the power grid remains stable despite increased evening demand driven by a drop in temperatures last week. The power utility has kept unplanned outages below threshold, spending R469.24 million on diesel since 1 April 2026.

“Diesel expenditure is at R469.24 million, significantly lower than the R2.436 billion incurred in the same period last year, reflecting an 80.74% reduction year-on-year,” Eskom said in a statement on 8 May.

They attribute this drastic reduction in diesel spend to operational improvements, as they had spent R1.3 billion in the first week of winter last year alone.

Eskom uses their open cycle gas turbines (OCGT) to generate electricity using diesel to supplement a grid under pressure from increased demand, which they use sparingly due to the exorbitant cost of diesel compared to coal. The latest data from Eskom shows that the power utility pays an average of R 8 538 to generate a MegaWatt Hour (MWh) of electricity, which is over 10 times what it costs to generate it using coal.

Last week, Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told Parliament in response to a question by the DA’s Kevin John Mileham, that Eskom is obliged to burn certain minimum amounts of diesel operated by independent power producers (IPP).

“A key risk is fuel degradation. Diesel cannot be stored indefinitely, as it deteriorates over time and becomes unsafe for turbine use,” the minister said.

According to Eskom’s 2026 Winter Outlook covering the period 1 April to 31 August 2026, Eskom projected that there would be no loadshedding this winter as they plan to keep unplanned generation outages below 12 000 MW, and the latest data indicate that unplanned outages averaged 11 593MW last week between 1 May and 7 May.

“Since 16 May 2025, South Africa has recorded 357 consecutive days without interruptions to electricity supply, reflecting system availability of approximately 98.9%,” Eskom said.