May 2026 saw:

• EAF recover to 65.8% (from 60.1% in April), but still below January–March
• Nuclear output get worse — averaging just 645 MW, with Koeberg running a unit at reduced capacity for a whole month
• A one-day OCGT peak of 2.9 GW, the highest in months — though average use stayed minimal
• Demand fall to 21,249 MW — the lowest May on record, below even Covid-2020

Outages eased — mostly seasonally​

The headline number recovered: the Energy Availability Factor rose from April's 60.1% to 65.8%, and total outages fell from 39.9% to 34.2% of fleet capacity. Most of that is the expected seasonal swing — planned maintenance (PCLF) was pulled back from 16.0% to 12.6% as Eskom clears the decks for winter peak demand. Unplanned outages (UCLF) also eased, from 23.7% to 21.4%, though they remain elevated.

Year-on-year it's genuinely better: May 2025 sat at 59.4% EAF, so the fleet is ~6 points more available than a year ago.

EAF recovered to 65.8% in May after April's dip, but remains below the 70%+ of January.

Total outages (black) eased back to ~15 GW as planned maintenance (yellow) wound down for winter; unplanned (red) remains elevated.

Koeberg still broken​

The one metric that got worse in May is the one Eskom has said least about. Nuclear output averaged just 645 MW for the month — down from 1,132 MW in April and 946 MW in May 2025. To be clear, this isn't a unit being taken fully offline: Koeberg has been running one unit at reduced capacity for the entire month, the same problem flagged in April, and Eskom still hasn't said a word about it. A whole month of a flagship nuclear station limping along with no public explanation is not normal.

Nuclear output drops off a cliff at the right edge and stays there through May — one unit running well below its ~900 MW rating, all month.

OCGT: a one-day spike, not a trend​

Average OCGT (diesel turbine) use stayed genuinely low for May at 137 MW. The headline is the monthly peak of 2,879 MW — the highest in months and up from April's 2,180 MW — but that was essentially a single day's burst, not a sustained ramp. It's worth flagging because it's the most expensive plant in the fleet and diesel is in short supply, but on its own one peak day isn't yet a winter trend; it's a reminder of how quickly the fleet leans on diesel when something slips.

Average OCGT use (red bars) is barely visible, while the monthly peak (yellow line) jumps to ~2.9 GW — driven by one day.

Demand at a record low​

The recovery is only possible because demand keeps falling. Average residual demand in May was 21,249 MW — the lowest May figure in the record, below even May 2020 (22,437 MW) when Covid shut the country down, and down ~8% on May 2025.

The "surplus" remains as much a demand-collapse story as a generation one: rooftop solar growth, industrial load curtailment, and a weak economy are doing a lot of the work that the generation fleet is being credited for.

May 2026 (red) sits below every prior year on the chart — the lowest May demand on record.

Exports stuck at the floor​

April's standout on the trade side was exports collapsing to the lowest level on record and falling below imports for the first time since May 2024 — a sign that neighbouring grids were feeling the strain before South Africa did. That didn't bounce back: exports stayed at those record-low levels for the whole of May, not just a bad week. The April collapse wasn't a one-off; it's now looking like the new normal.

Exports (orange) sit at the bottom of their range and below imports (green) — the depressed level first seen in April held through May.

Demand-reduction tools still in use​

Eskom kept pulling demand-reduction levers through May. Interruptible load (ILS) peaked around 507 MW — small, but not zero, and it keeps undercutting the claim of a comfortable power surplus. The monthly-peak view makes the contrast clear: manual load reduction (MLR), which spiked to multiple gigawatts during the worst loadshedding years, has been essentially dormant since 2024, while ILS and IOS tick along at a few hundred megawatts.

Monthly peak demand reduction. MLR (orange) — once multiple GW — is now near zero; ILS (teal) still peaks around 500 MW.

Outlook​

May was a step back in the right direction after April, but for the wrong reasons: the improvement is seasonal maintenance plus collapsing demand, not a healthier fleet. Koeberg has now run a unit at reduced capacity for a full month with no public explanation, exports are stuck at record lows, and demand keeps falling. None of that is a healthy "surplus" — and the gap between Eskom's public confidence and what the data shows is still there.

Data and charts from unofficialeskom.com. Corrections and questions welcome.

April 2026 saw:

• Worst EAF since May 2025
• Highest unplanned outages since July 2025
• Highest total outages since June 2025

Capability loss factors (top) show total outages climbing back to 18.8 GW, while the Energy Availability Factor (bottom) dropped to 60.15% — the worst since May 2025.

Koeberg nuclear troubles​

One unit at Koeberg shut down about a week before it was planned to go off for maintenance. The second unit is currently operating at 600 MW instead of 900 MW. Eskom has said nothing about either issue.

Nuclear generation (top) shows the sharp drop in output. OCGT generation (bottom) is climbing again, with maximum use hitting 2.6 GW.

OCGT reliance returns​

Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) are being used to generate up to 2.6 GW again. The average is still okay, but things are clearly breaking. With diesel in short supply, it is not a great time to be dependent on OCGTs.

Imports and exports​

Exports dropped to the lowest level on record, falling below imports for the first time since May 2024. Neighbouring countries appear to be suffering as a result before South Africa does.

International exports (orange) dropped below imports (green) for the first time since May 2024.

Interruptible load shedding​

Eskom is also starting to use the interruptible load shed lever again to reduce demand when needed. This is still small compared to even January, but it undermines the claim that South Africa has a power surplus.

Interruptible load shedding is ticking up again after months of near-zero use.

The "surplus" narrative​

Despite these issues, Eskom continues to push out statements about how good things are.

An FT article from 2 May 2026 quotes Eskom chief executive Dan Marokane claiming South Africa now has a power surplus.

Demand collapse masks the problem​

For now, South Africa is still very much relying on historically low demand — almost exactly the same as April 2020 when everything shut down for Covid.

Demand (top) and generation (bottom) for April 2026 are at levels comparable to April 2020, driven by rooftop solar growth, industrial load curtailment, and possibly economic weakness.

Sonnet 4.6 analysis​

Here's an AI analysis from Sonnet 4.6 also focusing on the nuclear wobbles and the demand collapse:

Sonnet 4.6 identified two distinct Koeberg failure events in April 2026 and noted that the claimed "surplus" is largely a demand collapse rather than a generation triumph — average demand fell from 24,226 MW in April 2024 to 21,686 MW in April 2026, a drop of 2,540 MW (-10.5%).

Outlook​

Hopefully this is just a temporary setback before getting back on the improvement train again. But with diesel in short supply, rising dependence on OCGTs, and a lack of transparency around Koeberg's status, the gap between Eskom's public statements and the underlying data is widening.

Data and charts from unofficialeskom.com. Corrections and questions welcome.

Small reversal in the headline metrics - unplanned losses up a bit, EAF down a bit to below 70% again, but nothing too concerning here

More use of the emergency generators too but it seems this was because Eskom is under 'use it or lose it' contracts so they choose to burn private diesel at higher cost rather than cheaper coal as they would have to pay for the diesel whether or not they used it. Weird world.

More interesting, IOS and ILS are both at nearly zero for the first time since like 2018?

I always get them mixed up so here's what they mean(?)

ChatGPT battles with the distinction too but I think broadly ILS is for big customers (smelters?) who Eskom can call and ask them to reduce and IOS is more broad and includes transmission faults etc too.

Otherwise not the most interesting month. Demand and generation continue with the pattern of a big year-on-year reduction. Still to be seen how much autumn/winter changes that.

See this data and more on my site unofficialeskom.com and feel free to shout with any questions or requests.

We skipped December as Eskom stopped publishing data in November and didn't fix it for several weeks.

Starting with a highlight: best EAF in January since June 2020!

Lowest use of emergency diesel on record? I have one lower value in Nov 2020 but I think that's a data glitch. Last month we never generated more than 411MW with the OCGTs.

demand and generation still at very record lows though, so we're still playing on easy mode in terms of high availability factor and low backup generator use. I'm interested to see what happens in July when the private solar drops off.

also nice to see Koeberg performing at near full capacity for the last 3 months. A small dip in jan from a brief outage but seems to have been quickly resolved.

Hopefully they figure out the long-term plan for the waste in one of the coming decades..

Otherwise not much to say. Things look OK for now. Yay for getting back into the green zone on my dial for the first time since I added it.

This data and more at my site unofficialeskom.com - feel free to tag me with any questions.

End of Diesel? According to the data, we never generated more than 350MW with the OCGT backup generators, which is the lowest I have on record except for nov 2020 which might also be a glitch.

New installed renewable record of 7.5GW - looks like all those announced installations are slowly coming online. I'm not sure exactly when they count as 'installed' from.

Thermal is dropping, but that's a usual trend for this time of year. Hopefully it starts increasing from Jan->July again if we can keep squeezing the coal plants.

Koeberg second unit is back, so we have 900MW of extra baseload to play with which is nice (and maybe related to not needing the OCGTs?)

Interruption of Supply and Manual Load Reduction looking good. I always forget exactly what these are an how they relate with each other

IOS – Interruption of Supply: all contracted as well as mandatory demand reduction resources utilised by Eskom National Control. Includes IOS due to Transmission network faults.

MLR – Manual Load Reduction. An estimation of demand that has been reduced due to load shedding and/or curtailment.

so super clear? Anyway, nice that they're low.

wait there are three

ILS – Interruptible Load Shed. This is consumer load(s) that can be contractually interrupted without notice or reduced by remote control or on instruction from Eskom National Control. Individual contracts place limitations on usage.

still playing on easy mode because there's no demand, so let's see how that changes when the sun goes away and private solar turns off.

All data from my site unofficialeskom.com - feel free to lmk any questions or feedback

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

Using those diesel generators a bit more again as a result

Lowest imports, maybe ever?

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

but ILS (interruptible load shed) went down 🤔

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?

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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)

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.

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

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

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.

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

• Unplanned outages still looking bad
• Small bump from new wind installations
• Diesel use trending down again

🧵

Planned maintenance is dropping (as expected as we head into colder months), which increases EAF, but not in the good way - unplanned outages still at 13.4GW - slightly higher than last month.

Thermal generation is up a bit, slightly higher than a year ago, and best so far this year, but looking a bit doubtful we will get back to a regularly >22GW peak from last winter.

New wind installations are helping a bit - highest peak of 3.2GW (from an installed base of 3.7GW), and ~200MW more on average than this time last year is nice to see

Still using those diesel generators for generating up to 3GW during peaks, but on average looking better than the last two months.

Exports up a bit - higher than May 2024, but still far below the November peak

Overall generation and demand is flat and the same as last year, so take your pick on whether the glass is currently half full or half empty I guess 🙃

As always - this data and more available on my site, unofficialeskom.com.

Ping me with any feedback or questions.

Note: the sqlite databases that all the metabase queries are based on are now available for direct download at unofficialeskom.com/dashboards/#.... I still have a TODO to create a data dictionary and explain the columns etc, but it's pretty straight forward.

🧵

EAF is not looking good with total loss at the highest level since March 2024.

Silver lining is that April is actually probably better last month - reduction in unplanned outages and an increase in planned outages, leads to higher total outages, but still better than more unplanned outages.

coal slightly down again.

Last month (bsky.app/profile/sixh...) I wrote that we installed a small amount of new wind capacity for the first time in a long time.

The newer data that they released shows it coming online in April instead of March

I wasted time coming through the CSV data downloads to make sure it wasn't a bug

They've taken their foot off the diesel a bit, but we're still using a lot. Peaking at 3GW (more than 3 Koebergs) and averaging 600 MW (close to one unit of Kusile, 800 MW x 6 units, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kusile_...).

I also added Interruptible Load Shed as a tracked graph for the first time after @c4talyst.bsky.social mentioned it was peaking.

This is a weird mechanism where Eskom can create virtual capacity by shutting off demand separate from loadshedding.

I haven't figured out what the numbers mean yet.

The other graphs are averages of the data I get from Eskom, but ILS seems very short lived, so all the 0s created weirdly small numbers (averaged by hour). This graph shows the total instead but that also doesn't seem right.

Whatever it is, they're using more of it than they have in a while.

I'm also tracking IOS (interruption of supply) now, which is similar but where they can turn off specific big business customers if they need. They haven't been squeezing more out of this than usual recently though.

Exports are continuing to decline from their weird peak a few months ago

Our hydro plant is working again. I don't understand this cycle either, but it seems to vary quite a lot. Either way, it's not much power so not that important, but I'm curious what leads to these swings.

See unofficialeskom.com for more and let me know any questions or comments.

The update this month was late because I didn't get the normal file after asking for it. Shout out to Yegz for sharing it with me. Maybe they blocked my email or something

There have been a lot of articles and press releases in the last few days about Eskom's diesel use and the upcoming elections.

One one side there is the DA, ex CEO De Ruyter, and some others claiming broadly that

• The situation at Eskom is as bad as ever
• Our record-setting 50 days without loadshedding is due to excessive diesel use
• After the elections, we'll have used up the diesel budget and things will go back to being bad
• This is due to political pressure that the ANC puts on Eskom

On the other is current Eskom leadership and the ANC who claim that

• Eskom has "turned the corner" and things are long-term improving
• Diesel is being burned responsibly and at a slower pace than before

I think the truth is somewhere in between, but I'm just some guy on the internet with an unhealthy obsession at trawling through data and news about Eskom, so take everything below with a healthy dose of skepticism, and only quote the bits that support whichever side of the debate you were already on.

Articles and claims​

https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/771174/the-truth-behind-no-load-shedding-according-to-andre-de-ruyter-2/

• He mentioned that during his tenure at Eskom, he and former COO Jan Oberholzer only had a budget of approximately R6 billion per year to spend on diesel to fuel the utility's open-cycle gas turbines to generate electricity.
• the current budget for diesel this year under new management is R24 billion, which is four times more than what they had at their disposal during his time.
• Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan recently revealed that Eskom spent R65 billion on diesel over the past five years to fuel its open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs).

https://www.da.org.za/2024/05/confirmed-anc-government-is-putting-political-pressure-on-eskom-to-burn-more-diesel-da-wants-answers

• According to NERSA, Eskom has already blown more than half of its quarterly budget of diesel for the first quarter of the 2024/2025 financial year in just one month.
• NERSA has confirmed beyond any doubt that the use of diesel-powered OCGT's was ramped up during the April-June 2024 financial quarter to coincides with the national elections on 29 May.

https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/eskom-nersa-set-the-facts-straight-on-diesel-usage/

• Unplanned outages have been reduced by 4 400MW since 26 April 2024 due to extensive maintenance and the success of the Generation Operational Recovery Plan initiated in March 2023.

Some concepts​

Part of what makes the discussion confusing and convoluted is that everyone quotes different metrics. A simplified version is that Eskom needs diesel to run emergency generators. These were originally designed to be run for very short 'peak' periods where demand exceeded supply at 6pm when everyone came home from work, or when a big coal plant had to be shut down for emergency repairs. Now they are run a lot more than that as demand has exceeded supply for many years.

But this diesel needs to be

1. Budgeted for
2. Bought
3. Used

And this leaves a lot of room for pointing fingers with statements like "Eskom's diesel budget is twice as big as last year" while leaving out inconvenient facts like how much was actually bought (budgets can be overrun) or used.

The main metric that Eskom tracks is "EAF" or energy availability factor, which is a percentage of what percentage of the power generation fleet is currently operational. Big number = good. Small number = bad. But again, it's more complicated because the inverse of the EAF (generators that are not operational) is broken into planned maintenance (good) and unplanned maintenance (bad), so it's possible to increase the EAF (good) by reducing the planned maintenacne (bad).

In reality we want a world where we have

• High EAF
• High planned maintenance (means we are not sacrificing future performance of the plants to make them work now)
• Low unplanned maintenance (things aren't breaking unexpectedly)
• Low diesel usage (diesel is expensive, and bad for the environment)

Further complications​

To make things even more complicated, reporters talking about this stuff are well known for getting facts and numbers very wrong. For example from a Moneyweb article.

Eskom's budget for diesel in the current financial year (April to June 2024) is R5.8 billion, and R1.16 billion has been spent as of 09 May 2024 (19.7% of the total budget). [emphasis added]

And Eskom doesn't really publish its actual diesel budget or purchases in a neat way (at least one that I've found) in their annual reports, so we have to rely on media statements and long NERSA documents to try to figure those out.

Looking at the OCGT usage data​

The easiest data to look at is the OCGT use. This includes all the emergency power generators that Eskom controls, including its own diesel generators, and those owned by independent power producers like Peakers.

This is daily data, aggregated monthly, so you can see we regularly use these to generate up to 500MW of power and can go up to just over 3GW if necessary (for context, our only Nuclear power station Koeberg generates a maximum of 1.8GW of power, and Kusile our in-progress coal power plant and fourth largest coal power plant in the world if it ever gets completed does 4.8GW).

The highlighted blocks show February, March, and April months, with the arrows showing pre-election months (South African general elections in May 2019 and May 2024). Looking at the 2019 period, it's easy to see where this idea of "we are burning diesel at unsustainable rates to keep the lights on and keep voters happy in the run-up months to the election" came from. Generally we'd expect to need emergency power more in winter, when demand is higher, but in reality we need emergency power when the coal power plants break down.

Whatever is the case for the increased usage in early 2019, the data doesn't really support the theory of using diesel to support this election. We had no loadshedding throughout the whole of April, and yet OCGT use was significantly lower than March and also below April last year. So it's not as simple as "more diesel, less loadshedding".

What about planned maintenance​

While everyone is focused on the diesel use, a 'sneakier' way that Eskom could reduce loadshedding if instructed by the powers that be is to reduce planned maintenance. Remember from earlier that we can increase EAF by reducing unplanned or planned maintenance, but we don't want to reduce planned.

In the 'retaliation' statements, Eskom has been quick to point out its progress in reducing unplanned maintenance, but has failed to mention its reduction in planned maintenance too.

If you look at the black line coming down in the last four months, you'll see it matches the yellow line coming down (bad) far better than it matches the red line coming down (good). The downward trend of the red line in the last 12 months is the strongest argument for a bit of optimism.

Interestingly enough for the conspiracy theorists, a similar pattern was seen before the 2019 elections, though not in the February-April period in any of the in between years.

On the other hand, the current planned maintenance is still not low. Generally most maintenance is done in December when demand is lower, and then ramps down in winter, so I would put this one down as something to watch, but not strong evidence that this is due to political pressure related to the elections.

Summary of claims​

• Eskom's diesel budget is 4x higher than before. Hard to verify. Probably it is true or close to true but also irrelevant as the previous budget was simply overrun, and diesel use was similar
• Eskom is burning diesel at a rate of knots. Weird way to measure, but probably true. Also irrelevant as this has been the case for years and not much has changed recently.
• Eskom has turned a corner and reduced unplanned breakdowns. Partly true, but lying by omission if you don't also look at the reduction in planned maintenance.
• Eskom is under political pressure to reduce loadshedding. Hard to say. I guess we'll see what happens in June.

Summary of my impression of the actors​

• Eskom: largely incompetent still as a whole, but there seems to be some smaller parts that are trying to improve things. Their media people seem to make the fewest outright false claims, although they do highlight certain parts that make them look good while ignoring some uncomfortable facts.

• De Ruyter: looking for media attention (good for his book sales?) and spouting nonsense without any regard to facts or data. Always happy to claim credit for anything good and deny responsibility for anything bad.

• DA: similar to De Ruyter, ready to jump on anything that riles up the conspiracy theorists.

• NERSA: probably the most competent of the lot, but also the quietest. Most of the 'NERSA said' claims turned out to be false.

• Conspiracy theorists: always happy to have a logical answer to the chaos that they live in, whether or not the data supports that answer.

It's controversial but probably because of state capture and general corruption in South Africa and especially at South Africa's State Owned Enterprises.

Because Eskom failed to build new generation capacity, it ran its aging power plants far harder than it should have. (Eskom benchmarks the performance of its coal-fired power stations against those of the members of Vereinigung der Großkesselbesitzer, a European-based technical association for electricity and heat generation industries.)

Here's a graph showing the utilization factor of Eskom's plants compared to VGB benchmarks.

Why do you trust the data?​

I don't particularly. It is erratically updated, and often unavailable. My current email thread with mediadesk@eskom runs to hundreds of emails. Each time I notice something wrong with the data (out of date, broken format, missing, unlikely) I ask them. Sometimes they respond. Sometimes I follow up a few times and then they respond. The shorter term data that they usually update every day (the graphs and CSVs on their 'data portal') often doesn't perfectly match the longer term data that you can request though their data request form. The data in the PowerBI charts often does not match the data in the CSV exports that should be hard-linked to those charts. Shrug emoji.

But from what I've seen, this can all be ascribed to incompetence, not malice. I've heard every conspiracy theory imagineable, including but not limited to

• ANC controls eskom and creates loadshedding for political gain
• ANC controls eskom and stops loadshedding for political gain
• Corrupt contractors control eskom and sabotage power plants to milk maintenance contracts (I think Eskom supports this directly so probably not a conspiracy theory)
• Corrupt IPPs control eskom and sabotage coal plants in order to sell more OCGT (diesel) energy at high rates

I'm sure some mix of these are true, but I don't believe that Eskom is a cohesive and well-run organization. This means that it's as hard for any evil person to gain control over it as it is for anyone competent and well meaning.

The data published through the Eskom.com website is barely ever referred to or used in any Eskom media statements or government media statements. It seems to be run by some smaller function within Eskom and to have at least some people who care enough to fix their CSV files when they break and are bothered about it, but not care enough to actually make it reliable or easy to understand (hence this website). Often individuals from Eskom, from the government, or related to either makes statements that contradicts the data.

I think most people don't know that the 'eskom data portal' exists, and most don't care.

So tl;dr I'm open to any new information or well-reasoned arguments anyone wants to share about why they think this data is bullshit and why I'm wasting my time collecting and analysing it, but overall I will apply Occam's Razor and Hanlon's Razor, and assume that the published data at least broadly gives some kind of indication of what is happening inside Eskom.