Eskom dismisses false claims of imminent load shedding in July
Eskom has firmly rebutted alarmist claims circulating on social media regarding potential stage 4 and stage 6 load shedding from July 6 to July 20.
Image: File
Eskom has strongly rejected false claims circulating online about imminent stage 4 and stage 6 loadshedding from 6 July until 20 July with the power utility saying the country's power system remains stable with loadshedding suspended since 10pm 15 May 2025.
"The Winter Outlook, published on 5 May 2025, covering the period ending 31 August 2025, remains valid. It indicates that loadshedding will not be necessary if unplanned outages stay below 13 000MW. If outages rise to 15 000MW, loadshedding would be limited to a maximum of 21 days out of 153 days and restricted to Stage 2. There are no planned outages of this scale. Misinformation causes unnecessary alarm. Stay informed—trust only official Eskom updates on our official platforms," the power utility said.
This past week, electricity and energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said municipalities with a combined debt of over R100 billion have not been able to reduce the amounts they owe to Eskom.
The minister added that the ongoing challenges could result in the total collapse of the South African electricity complex.
The minister described Eskom's challenge of supplying electricity but being unable to collect revenue as an 'existential problem'.
'They are spending money they must collect from the bulk consumer, and where they are reticulating. They are finding it difficult to collect, so they're unable to reinvest back into their asset base. It's going to result in, if not managed, a total collapse of the electricity complex in the country," Ramokgopa said.
On Friday, Eskom revealed that despite the high unplanned outages and severe weather conditions in parts of South Africa, the available generation capacity was enough to meet peak demand.
The power utility also revealed that for the week of 20 to 26 June 2025, unplanned outages averaged 14 696MW, exceeding last year's figure by 2 815MW and the base case estimate of 13 000MW by 1 696MW.
It said the increase was largely due to Medupi Unit 4, which has been offline since August 2021 and was scheduled to return on 30 May 2025. The delay in its return was factored into the unplanned outage calculations from 1 June 2025, adding 800MW. Year-to-date, average unplanned outages stand at 14 031MW.
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