The grid has held for 504 days, and the diesel that once covered the gap has nearly gone.

For a generator, a mine's energy buyer or any holder of a power purchase agreement planning around summer supply, the grid behind that contract has now run for 504 days without load shedding, counted from 16 May 2025. Eskom's weekly statement of 2 October 2026 puts availability for the six months from 1 April at 68.11 per cent, against 62.59 per cent in the same months last year, with unplanned outages down to 19.01 per cent of capacity.

The cost of holding that line has fallen with it. Diesel spending over those six months came in at R1.16 billion, where the same months a year earlier cost R5.95 billion, a cut of R4.79 billion or just over 80 per cent, and the open cycle gas turbines ran at a load factor of 1.02 per cent against 6.72 per cent a year earlier, inside the 3 per cent annual target.

The daily numbers show where the slack sits. Eskom forecast a Friday evening peak of 23 382MW against 26 036MW available excluding gas, and reported 6 722MW parked in cold reserve because capacity exceeds demand. That is roughly 2 654MW, about 11 per cent, between the expected peak and what was ready to run, before the cold reserve is counted at all. Assessment: a reserve margin built on plant availability rather than on fuel burn is cheaper to carry and more exposed to a cluster of breakdowns, so grid reliability through summer is now a plant question rather than a diesel budget question.

Demand is not fixed either. Grid offtake rose by about 1 000MW in the week to 1 October when cloud cut rooftop solar output, which shows how much of the load privately owned panels are carrying on clear days.

Separately, the narrower cuts Eskom applies to overloaded networks, which it calls load reduction, now reach 202 590 customers, down from 1.69 million and about 2.8 per cent of its base, with 593 of 971 targeted feeders released and a commitment to end the practice by March 2027.

The next weekly update falls on 9 October, with the summer outlook to follow. That outlook is where a buyer pricing supply risk will see whether 68 per cent availability is a floor or a high-water mark.