The Eskom board will, before the end of January, consider a new approach to the maintenance of its ailing coal fleet – one premised on creating more time and space for intensive maintenance and repair, whereby the utility makes a firm commitment to only a minimum level of supply that falls well short of demand. The resultant supply/demand gap would then have to be met through a combination of new emergency supply and demand-side management. Should such solutions fail to address the imbalance, however, Eskom would then resort to ongoing routine load-shedding.
