Mbabane – The Eswatini Energy Regulatory Authority has released its latest assessment of electricity service providers, detailing how the country’s three licensees performed between April 2024 and March 2025. The review focuses on service quality, safety, operational efficiency and the stability of electricity supply across the national grid.
The Authority, created under the Energy Regulatory Act of 2007, is responsible for issuing licences, regulating tariffs and monitoring the security and quality of supply. Its inspectors carry out quarterly checks to ensure compliance with national standards. The current report covers the Eswatini Electricity Company, Usuthu Forest Products Company and the Royal Eswatini Sugar Corporation.
The evaluation shows that EEC, which serves 298918 customers, handled a surge in quotation requests driven by a 4.58 per cent increase in its customer base. Performance varied depending on infrastructure requirements, with quicker turnaround times where the existing network could be used. Industrial and commercial customers recorded a 92 per cent success rate for quotations but only 50 per cent for supply.
In meter reading, both EEC and UFPC reached the required monthly target for customers with demand above 50 kVA, while RES Corp recorded 88 per cent, below the 95 per cent benchmark.
All three licensees maintained 24 hour telephone services for fault reporting and logged standard customer details. EEC is the only licensee issuing fault reference numbers. The sector’s responsiveness to restoring power after unplanned outages showed contrasting results. EEC did not meet the minimum targets for restoration intervals of 1.5 hours, 4.5 hours and 7.5 hours. RES Corp and UFPC exceeded expectations in all initial timeframes, reaching 100 per cent restoration within 96 hours.
EEC experienced the most interruptions during the summer months, particularly in December, although overall interruptions were lower than the previous year. The Authority noted an improvement of 15028 fewer interruptions compared to 2023/24.
Safety monitoring exposed gaps, including missing data from UFPC on accident related lost time and the absence of employee safety attitude reports from all licensees. RES Corp recorded 10.35 per cent of time lost to accidents, prompting concern from regulators.
On generation performance, EEC and RES Corp submitted quarterly figures showing variable capacity factors across hydro, solar and biomass plants. EEC’s Maguga and Lavumisa stations produced some of the strongest outputs, while RES Corp’s biomass plants demonstrated higher capacity factors.
Transmission performance remained a challenge for EEC, which reported average losses of 8 per cent, higher than the 3 to 5 per cent industry standard and up from 7 per cent the previous year. Imports from Eskom increased to 870783 MWh, while imports from EDM declined.
EEC reported improvements in key reliability indicators such as SAIDI and SAIFI, and the Authority acknowledged a well executed maintenance plan overall.
On distribution, both RES Corp and UFPC completed all planned maintenance activities for the year. EEC’s maintenance execution fluctuated across quarters as adverse weather forced the redeployment of resources to outage restoration.
Power quality monitoring revealed persistent voltage magnitude issues across EEC’s 42 monitored sites. Compliance dropped to 29 per cent in the final quarter, and data availability also declined throughout the year. Voltage dips recorded across the network exceeded acceptable limits, with a total of 16841 dips excluding category Y.
To strengthen oversight, the Authority expanded its own monitoring equipment to 16 sites countrywide, including new installations in Siteki, Dvokolwako, Big Bend, Hluthi and Bulembu. Nine sites provided consistent data for analysis. Only Ngwenya and Mhlambanyatsi recorded full compliance across all quality parameters. Other sites showed failures in flicker severity, voltage harmonics, individual harmonic distortion and voltage magnitude.
Voltage event monitoring detected significant over voltage occurrences in Lavumisa and Maloma. The Authority has engaged EEC, which has committed to corrective action.
The latest findings show pockets of improvement across the industry but also highlight persistent weaknesses in power quality and restoration performance. The Authority says engagements with licensees will continue as it works toward improving reliability and safety within the national electricity network.
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