Introduction

Meeting escalating electricity demand with a much-diminished reserve margin has proven to be the biggest challenge in the past year. The management of plant performance became increasingly complex as the reserve margin decreased. An adequate reserve margin creates a window for maintenance and allows for unplanned outages. The organisation’s ability to sustain high levels of electricity production while ensuring adequate maintenance and sufficient fuel stocks was severely tested.

Sustainability

At Eskom, we ensure that sustainable development issues are fully integrated into all our activities and business practices. Our broader definition of sustainability includes issues such as technology development and deployment, quality, risk, safety and skills development.

Eskom has integrated sustainable development issues into decision-making for many years. As the new build programme progresses and decisions are taken on key operational practices and programmes, many of the critical issues are identified and factored into decisions. These include diversification of the energy mix, climate change considerations, financial aspects, improvements in environmental performance and social issues such as job creation.

Eskom’s sustainable development philosophy and practice form a vital and integral part of our business which guides our vision. It ensures that we strive to continually improve our performance in consultation with our stakeholders in a transparent manner. Our performance is continually benchmarked against international practice, as we strive to go beyond what is required of us in terms of legislation.

Sustainability performance

Our sustainability performance index provides an overarching view of our long-term sustainability status through the use of 20 appropriate indicators drawn from different indices in the organisation.

The overall performance is considered sustainable if the score is equal to or greater than three on a five-point scale. Eskom’s overall performance for the reporting period was 2,5 (2007: 3,0).

With the decline in the reserve margin the load factor increased, resulting in a drop in plant availability. Performance also declined as a result of the unacceptably high number of fatalities. Further areas that declined were productivity, interest and return on capital employed, as well as contraventions of environmental legislation. Areas that performed well included the reduction in electricity demand through demand-side management, race and gender equity, electrification and black economic empowerment.