LETTER: The truth about the Eskom ‘miracle’

Eskom has been in the news a lot in the past week. The conventional narrative is that it is the comeback kid, with the energy availability factor (EAF) up by almost 10% in just one year, a newly appointed CEO, new power station managers and Eskom engineers working overtime. That increase in EAF means an additional 4GW and has put an end to load-shedding.

Alas, every engineer knows that nobody can perform miracles like that overnight. The real story is a bit different.

Eskom power stations require high-quality coal. The effect of substandard coal — or even rocks — is horrendous. Picture an Eskom coal pulveriser ingesting inert rocks. It shreds the EAF. The real story is that the open market price of power station coal has dropped to a quarter in just one year. As a result, the black market for coal in South Africa has all but disappeared — the profit opportunity of stealing or substituting quality coal destined for Eskom and substituting it with cheap coal or rocks is gone. So the increase in EAF is likely due to the decrease in unplanned outages previously caused by substandard coal.

The other demand side of the Eskom “miracle”: electricity consumption in South Africa is down significantly. Actual kilowatt hours sold for the year to date are down 4%. That is a decrease from a constrained 2023, when we were load-shedding at stages 4, 5 and 6 most of the time. Keeping the lights on when your customers buy less and less is no reason to gloat.

Eskom is benefiting from external conditions and hasn’t performed any miracles at all. I am very happy for South Africa and Eskom, but one shouldn’t give credit where none is due.

Robert Breyer
By e-mail

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