Adverse weather conditions pushed up faults across Eskom’s network. Stormy weather pushed reported power issues up 40% over the festive season compared with 2024 as a result of damaged infrastructure, Eskom said. Late December 2025 saw unusually wet and stormy conditions sweep across much of South Africa.
Heavy rain, strong winds, lightning, hail, and localised flooding were reported in Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu‑Natal, the Free State, and parts of the North West and Eastern Cape. The South African Weather Service issued multiple warnings through the festive season, with particularly severe storms on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. While supply has been restored in most affected areas, some communities remain without electricity due toseverely damaged infrastructure, Eskom said.
“Eskom teams have been working throughout this period and continue to restore supply safely and as quickly as possible,” it said in a statement. Eskom also pointed to other issues that affected power sustainability, such as illegal connections and meter tampering. These, it warned, continued to damage networks and create serious safety risks, prompting temporary load reduction in high-risk areas.
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Despite these challenges, Eskom said the national power system remains stable and continues to meet electricity demand. These distribution-level issues mirror persistent problems in municipalities across the country over the past year. In Johannesburg, City Power has repeatedly attributed prolonged and repeated outages to cable theft, vandalism, substation fires, and illegal connections. This left suburbs including Braamfontein, Newtown, Parktown, and the inner city without power for days despite no national load shedding being in effect.
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