Eskom’s energy production has been falling since 2007, despite the utility getting added capacity in that period. Loadshedding has been avoided thanks largely to reduced demand from a shrunken economy Though a recovery of commodity prices does not guarantee industry demand recovery or further investment, when this situation changes, some industry may be able to respond by ramping up productionEskom’s numbers show that it is operating more efficiently under CEO Brian Molefe than under his predecessors — but the fundamentals of the business are not in a healthy state.The utility’s electricity output falls every year. Last week Statistics SA showed Eskom produced and sold 171,186 gigawatt hours (GWh) of power in the nine months ended September — against 173,689 GWh in the first nine months of 2015.Despite Eskom’s spin to the contrary, the Stats SA numbers (collected from Eskom data) show its production has decreased every year since 2007, when it hit 241,170GWh. For all of last year, E...
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