How did Eskom keep the lights on?

Regular blackouts had become a part of South African life and fueled feelings that the country was going in the wrong direction, but the power supply has not been interrupted since March leaving people wondering what has changed.

It’s a crisp winter’s day in Johannesburg, a clear blue sky over the bustling township of Alexandra, or Alex, as it’s popularly known here in South Africa.

Sizeka Rashamosa is standing in his restaurant, there are a lot of people around him, some are delivering crates of beer, others are grilling meat on a hotplate. A group of young men are sitting at a sun-baked table.

He says: “I can’t talk, I’m busy.”

It is a long way from when we first met in March last year, during South Africa’s electricity crisis and frequent blackouts, the official term for planned power cuts.

At that time Mrs Rashamosa had very little electricity, and only one customer. A reflection of the wider impact on the economy.

“Strength is everything,” he said at the time. “I am very depressed. We don’t have money because of electricity, you see it’s dark. I don’t think I will survive in my business. We will have to close after 25 years. It is very bad.”

But now, when he finally gets a few minutes to speak, things get even better.

“Loadshedding is much better now,” he says. “You see, there is electricity. And now I’m busy. I will remain open, there are no plans to close, I don’t have any more.”

It’s a wonderful change.

The load shedding started in 2007, reaching its lowest level last year with power outages lasting more than half a day.

This year was expected to be worse. But it has now been more than four months without a blackout – since 05:00 on 26 March to be clear – the longest break in more than four years.

How did the transition take place, and will the blackouts return?

This is mainly due to a series of initiatives from state-owned electricity utility Eskom and the government over the past two years.

In July 2022 President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the Energy Action Plan, and the following February he declared a state of national emergency due to the power crisis.

Not long after he created the position of Minister of Electricity, he appointed Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

Eskom then launched a two-year Generation Operational Recovery Plan, the main objective of which was to increase the electricity capacity – known as the “Energy Availability Factor” (EAF) – to 70% of the network capacity.

At the same time Eskom overhauled its leadership, which many pointed to as an important factor.

For years, the company has been plagued by corruption under President Jacob Zuma, known as state capture, when it became a victim of acts of theft and destruction of property. The former CEO even said he was poisoned.

“If you look at them now, they are well mixed. You have technical people, you have financial people, you have people with skills in exchange,” said energy analyst Ruse Moleshe.

“Our 40,000 workers are very determined, very determined, because the power outage was debilitating for all of us, morale was very low,” said Daphne Mokwena, Eskom’s national spokesperson.

Another important step last year was a 254bn rand ($14bn; £10.9bn) package from the treasury to plug Eskom’s financial hole.

As a result there has been a significant reduction in unplanned outages at Eskom power stations, caused by unit breakdowns.

This then meant that a planned maintenance program could be carried out.

That led to a lot of electricity, and on July 23rd it reached 35,000 MW, its highest figure in six years.

“There has been a pipeline of these big projects,” said energy expert Chris Yelland, talking about the projects that started from July 2022.

“It’s like having a pipe where you put marbles in one side, and then you keep putting them in because it takes a long time, eventually the marbles start to come out.”

Then there are external factors.

“The first thing a person can say is that there is a general need for electricity [from Eskom] about the South African economy as the country has been declining for ten years,” said Mr Yelland.

This depends on two factors – rising energy bills and the spread of alternative energy sources.

“Every year we increase the price of electricity at Eskom several times more than inflation, so the real price of electricity is increasing and it has been doing this for years,” said Mr Yelland.

“And there has been a dramatic increase in solar and battery storage systems for everyone from residential applications, to commercial, industrial mining and agriculture.”

Weak economic growth has also led to an easing of upward pressure on energy demand.

Minister Ramokgopa regularly holds press conferences in the capital, Pretoria, which is the flagship of the South African government, and regularly visits Eskom power stations.

He was very upbeat at his recent press conference, particularly proud of the fact that so much was accomplished during the winter, a time of year that sees the greatest demand for energy.

But could all this happen so quickly?

“I think we could have handled the situation better when we were told early on that ‘you’re going to run out of energy, invest in new production’,” Mr Ramokgopa told the BBC.

“We thought the market would solve that problem, when in fact the state should lead, and we didn’t create the conditions for the market to respond properly.”

He also admitted that the blackout contributed to the result of the May election of the African National Congress (ANC) when it saw its votes drop below 50% for the first time.

“Our foundation was not sure that the management was able and willing to solve the problem. We have paid the fine, we are here, the federal government is committed to that and solving the South African problem. I’m sure we’ll fix it.”

With the changes is loadshedding now a thing of the past?

“It is very close to say that we have succeeded,” said President Ramaphosa in his speech last month.

“Our electricity system is at risk and we cannot ignore – yes – the potential challenges going forward.”

There are still occasional power outages – known as “blackouts” – where Eskom cuts power to high-use areas to prevent damage to local infrastructure, such as transformers, which could lead to long-term blackouts.

Eskom says this is due to illegal connections and overcrowding in buildings – what it and the government call “squatters”.

The government says 5% of South African households have been affected by load shedding.

But things seem really good.

“We are not out of the woods yet, but there is little chance that we will go back to blackouts if we continue to do what we are doing now,” said Daphne Mokwena.

Back at Alex, Ms Rashamosa is preparing for a busy weekend, which she couldn’t have imagined this time last year.

“Life is so much better now,” he said, and climbed into the back of his restaurant.