South Africans spent years staring at load-shedding schedules like they were religious texts. We planned our lives, our dinners, and our businesses around those dreaded blocks of darkness. Now, the narrative has shifted so fast it’s giving people whiplash. Eskom’s leadership, specifically Dan Marokane, is now talking about a power surplus. It sounds like a tall tale after a decade of rolling blackouts, but the numbers back it up. We aren’t just keeping the lights on; we have extra room to breathe.
This isn't some lucky break or a seasonal fluke. It’s the result of a concentrated effort to fix the coal fleet while renewable energy finally started pulling its weight on the grid. The Energy Availability Factor (EAF) has climbed toward 65% after languishing in the 50s for years. That’s a massive swing. It means the plants we already have are actually working.
The surplus is real but it is not a magic wand
We need to be clear about what "surplus" means in this context. It doesn’t mean we have infinite power or that we can go back to the wasteful habits of the 90s. It means that on a typical day, Eskom has about 2,000 to 3,000 megawatts of "buffer" beyond what the country is currently using.
Why does this matter? Because for years, we operated with a negative margin. If one boiler tube leaked at Medupi, a whole suburb went dark. Now, Eskom can take a unit offline for planned maintenance without hitting the panic button. This "operational headroom" is the difference between a functional economy and a collapsing one.
The real driver here has been the Generation Recovery Plan. Marokane and his team stopped patching holes and started doing proper mid-life refurbishments. They stopped treating the symptoms and started performing surgery. But there’s a catch that nobody wants to talk about. Part of this surplus exists because demand has dropped. People didn't just wait for Eskom to get its act together. They left.
Why the grid looks different in 2026
If you look at your neighbor's roof, you'll see why the surplus exists. Thousands of South African households and businesses installed solar panels during the dark days of 2023 and 2024. That "behind-the-meter" generation has permanently shaved a huge chunk off the national peak demand.
Eskom isn't just fighting broken machines anymore; they’re fighting for relevance in a market where the biggest customers are starting to generate their own juice. The surplus is a win for stability, but it's a headache for Eskom's balance sheet. If they have extra power but fewer people buying it, the math gets ugly.
We've seen a massive push in the private sector too. Big mines and factories are now running on their own wind and solar farms. This is the "missing" demand that makes the current surplus look bigger than it actually is. It’s a structural change in how South Africa breathes.
The bitter pill of electricity prices
You’d think a surplus would mean lower prices. In a normal market, that’s how supply and demand work. But Eskom isn't a normal market. It’s a utility buried in debt. Even with the lights on, the cost of keeping those old coal plants running is skyrocketing.
The surplus actually puts Eskom in a weird spot. They need to sell more power to pay off their R400 billion debt, but the price hikes they’re asking for—sometimes over 30%—are driving more people to go off-grid. It’s a "utility death spiral." The more they charge to cover their costs, the less power they sell, which forces them to charge even more.
Don't expect your bill to drop just because Kusile is finally behaving. Expect the opposite. The surplus gives us reliability, but we are paying a premium for that peace of mind. We are essentially paying for the years of neglected maintenance all at once.
Can we trust the surplus to last
Maintenance is a double-edged sword. To keep the surplus, Eskom has to take plants offline to fix them. If they get lazy and stop the "philosophy of maintenance," we’ll be right back in Stage 4 by next winter. Marokane has been adamant that the intensive maintenance regime stays. This is smart. It’s better to have a planned 2,000MW outage now than an unplanned 5,000MW collapse later.
Another factor is the weather. South Africa’s grid is still heavily dependent on coal, which hates wet weather. If the coal gets soaked, the surplus evaporates. However, the introduction of massive battery storage projects across the Western and Northern Cape is starting to mitigate this risk. These batteries act like a giant power bank for the country, smoothing out the bumps when a coal unit trips.
What businesses should do right now
If you’re running a business, don't scrap your backup plans yet. The surplus is a sign of health, but the grid is still fragile. Use this period of stability to optimize your energy use rather than just surviving.
- Audit your load. Now that you aren't rushing to start generators, look at where you're wasting power.
- Invest in storage. Solar is great, but battery prices have dropped significantly since 2024. Use the surplus time to install systems that can arbitrage prices—charge when power is cheap, use it when Eskom hits you with peak rates.
- Negotiate. If you’re a heavy industrial user, the surplus gives you slightly more leverage in discussions about wheeling and direct supply agreements.
The "power surplus" isn't a signal to go back to sleep. It’s a window of opportunity. We have the chance to modernize the grid while the lights are actually on. If we waste this surplus by ignoring the need for new transmission lines and grid upgrades, the darkness will eventually return.
Transmission is the new bottleneck. We have the power in the North and the East, but we can't always get it to the South and the West where the new growth is. The surplus at the power station doesn't help you if the wires between here and there are melting. Eskom needs roughly R390 billion just for transmission lines over the next decade. That’s the real mountain we have to climb.
Stop worrying about the schedule and start worrying about the tariff. That’s the new frontier of the South African energy crisis. The surplus is a victory, but it's a cold comfort when the bill hits your inbox.
Move your heavy energy tasks to off-peak hours if you can. Stay on top of the NERSA hearings. The fight has moved from the physical grid to the financial one. Get your own energy house in order while the sun is shining and the turbines are spinning.
