Eskom's diesel correction puts FY2026 peaking at R7.1 billion and a 3% load factor.

For a PPA holder with peaking exposure, the hours behind South Africa's emergency diesel running are now a published number rather than an estimate. Eskom's own turbines ran at a load factor of 3.9% in FY2026 and independent producer turbines at 3.0%, where the budget had assumed 5.8%; load factor is simply the share of available hours a plant actually generates. Those independent units drew R2.14 billion of the R7.1 billion spent on open cycle gas turbines across the year.

The figures sit in a correction the utility published on 4 September 2026, after a press report treated R12.81 billion, the diesel budget approved for FY2026, as money spent. Actual turbine expenditure was R7.1 billion, R4.96 billion of it on Eskom's own fleet, leaving the year R5.71 billion under the approved figure and R10.6 billion, or roughly 60 per cent, below the R17.7 billion of FY2025.

The operating numbers behind that fall are in the same statement. Energy availability, the share of fleet capacity ready to run, reached 65.16%. Unplanned breakdowns fell to 22.88%, their lowest in six years, an average of 10 647MW out of service at any time. Loadshedding ran to 26 hours across four days, against 329 days in FY2024, and profit after tax came to R30.3 billion.

The current year has gone further: counted to 27 August 2026, diesel spending sits 82.38% below the same point a year earlier, with the load factor averaging 1.10%.

Read together, those load factors describe a South African electricity market in which emergency peaking is a thin and shrinking revenue line rather than a dependable one. What is left open is whether the 5.8% planning assumption survives into the next budget, since that figure is the clearest published statement of how much emergency generation the operator expects to call on, and it is the number against which peaking capacity is valued.