Maintenance progress alone insufficient to eliminate load-shedding risk amid 4 GW deficit

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter insisted on Monday that, despite a recent return to load-shedding, progress was being made on the utility’s so-called reliability maintenance programme to improve the performance of the coal fleet to the point where the risk of rotational power cuts would be materially reduced by September. He stressed, however, that the load-shedding threat would not be entirely eliminated until the prevailing generation supply shortfall of some 4 000 MW was addressed through large-scale new investments in generation capacity – a shortfall that would expand should the South Africa economy begin growing again.