Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has urged the public to ignore and avoid politicians who are using loadshedding for electioneering, emphasising that there is no link between the 29th of May and the current abundance in electricity. Ramokgopa also praised Eskom for the 26 days of no loadshedding in April 2024, saying the generation operation recovery plan is yielding the anticipated results.

Ramokgopa said the kind of progress that is seen today, is largely a result of the work done by the team at Eskom. "We are turning the corner and making significant strides to ensure that finally we get to see the back of load shedding. Of course, we are not yet out of the woods. There's been significant recovery as a result of the execution of the generation operational recovery plan and as a result of, first, at the national level, the Energy Action Plan," he said. Ramokgopa added that there have been improvements in relation to the unplanned capacity loss factor during the past week. "We are beginning to see the kind of improvement that we are desiring. The period of March, the Unplanned Capacity Loss Factor, the rate at which we are losing these units, the rate at which these units are not efficient is coming down. The baseline of May 2023, we were sitting at about 18 000MW, we are bringing it down. The average of the week from the 8 to 12 April 2024 we were sitting at about 13 900MW. The week after, again at 14 000MW. Today, we are still at about 13 000MW. We want to maintain that, even bring it sub-13 000MW but it's a function of a steady, orchestrated and deliberate effort on the part of Eskom." he said.

The Minister emphasised that although the improvements are commendable, focus is still firmly on the work that still needs to be done. "We are keeping focus on the bouncing ball- the resolution of load shedding. I must emphasise that in the nature of this space, you are likely to have setbacks. We are still working on the reliability of these machines and that's why you can't speak with great confidence that load shedding is behind us. We are making the kind of progress that, in many instances, far exceeds where we thought we will be, but we are not yet where we want to be," he said. He highlighted that the Energy Action Plan is also beginning to bear fruit which is exemplified in the contribution of renewable energy projects. "We are seeing exceptional performance of renewables. As a result of the reforms that the state has introduced. The contribution of renewables is on the back of state incentives. It's part of that orchestrated plan. If you go to the Energy Action Plan, outcome number four stated explicitly that part of this Energy Action Plan is to ensure that we accelerate the rollout of roof top solar solutions for both households and industries. When we are out of this load shedding situation, we will still encourage people to rollout rooftop solar solutions because we want to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and we want to ensure that households, small and large industries contribute to this green transition we have committed to," he said.