Gareth Dwyer 🇳🇱🇨🇭🇿🇦

As always, more graphs on my site unofficialeskom.com and feel free to ask me any questions and I'll try answer.

Radioactive waste storage at Koeberg very close to full Storage of such waste is a major environmental concern in the region, as SA looks to extend Koeberg’s life for another two decades

I learned that we store all high-level waste on the Koeberg site itself, and that it's full, so we're buying expensive 'dry storage casks' from the US in order to store more, also on-site, but those are also full now?

www.businessday.co.za/bd/national/...

Maybe we'll build something by 2030

not visible in the monthly graphs yet, but the other Koeberg unit is busy powering up again. AFAIK this is the end of the cycling/swopping of the two units for refurbishment and refuelling, so we should have both running simultaneously for the first time in years.

The big drop in supply and demand from last month was not a one-off.

Lowest imports, maybe ever?

Using those diesel generators a bit more again as a result

Eskom data - October 2025

Not anything too interesting this month - EAF down again due to an increase in unplanned outages, but still 'ok' overall.

As always all data and graphs from unofficialeskom.com. Feel free to let me know any questions or answers.

I'm not sure I totally understand each of these, but maybe it's because iOS includes transmission network faults.

The transmission network seems to be the bottleneck now instead of generation which everyone has been focusing on, as many people predicted?

but ILS (interruptible load shed) went down 🤔

also weird, IOS (interruption of supply, a mechanism that lets Eskom cut off business users) went up a bit compared to last month.

Very low imports too. Is everything down.

Massive demand drop.

I need to go double check that I'm not missing data that causing this, because it looks sus.

We're hardly using the OCGT backup generators any more, with very low average and max use (relatively speaking).

I think the best EAF in september since 2018, top of the chart for my curve graphs as they don't go back that far.

Eskom data - September 2025

Another dip in unplanned outages takes us close to 2020 levels!

Overall Eskom deserves some of the crowing they've been doing recently (unplanned outages down = good), but in context things seem to be

a) similar to a year ago
b) a lot less pressure due to reduced demand

So I'm maintaining my cautiously optimistic stance about future stability.

I'm guessing that another bigger than (I) expected dip in demand is an important factor here. Generation is only slightly up year on year, but demand is way down.

similar for diesel use, big improvement for the last few months, but similar to last winter.

EAF is up to best since July last year where it was slightly higher, but slightly better ratio of planned:unplanned since then so still a win.

Eskom data - August 2025 (finally)

I finally got a reply to my data request for August data (usually takes a few hours / days, this time several weeks)

Metrics looking good compared to the last few months, but not that far off where we were a year ago.

Very nice dip in unplanned outages.

I'm still 'cautiously optimistic about progress with a side dose of something could blow up at any time'

Overall I'm surprised that things held together pretty well for July, usually the worst of winter I think. Koeberg unit 2 return got delayed again (not that unexpected, but was meant ot be July) and Medupi is only scheduled to get to full commercial operation in September.

Kinda interesting pattern in Demand vs Generation here - demand is still dropping, so either SA is having a sunny winter or private solar isn't as big a factor as I hypothesized before in reducing demand (maybe the economy is just that dead?)

Hopefully we can get back at least to 2024 levels soon

Thermal (coal) is looking really flat, so I'm not sure where all that extra availability is coming from. Maybe we have coal plants that are working but switched off? Not sure exactly how they calculate that re planned maintenance.

Nuclear is also flat so it's not that

Diesel use also looking better - lowest since November 2024, but still twice as high as July 2024.

And we're still using these things up to 3GW at peaks, so the max is still very high.

Eskom data - July 2025

Sorry I missed June, I was travelling.

July is looking positive! Big decrease in total loss, and this time it's in the good way (decrease in unplanned, increase in planned)

IS_SANDBOX=1 lets you run `claude --dangerously-skip-permissions` as root - useful for setting up a new VPS

Hidden here on the help page it mentions the pretty important distinction that you need Max to use Opus with Claude Code.

Based on reading other people's experiences, I _think_ that pro and max plan used to only be differentiated by use. (Max gets you more use than Pro).

Anthropic isn't transparent about

- How much use you get
- What models are available

Here: no mention of Sonnet vs Opus.

The pricing is really confusing and bad. I tried to buy it for my team, but claude code is _not_ included in the team subscription. They only mention this in the small print.