Eskom continues to be burdened with unpaid debts by municipalities‚ R4 billion of which are older than 90 days.The utility said R778 million was between 61 and 90 days old‚ R820 million between 31 and 60 days old‚ and R423 million between 15 and 30 days old.CEO Brian Molefe told MPs that Eskom does not expect to have to load shed for the rest of the summer‚ autumn and winter despite continuing with its rigorous maintenance programme.“We will avoid load shedding at all costs but we are not out of the woods yet‚” he said in a briefing to the public enterprises committee.There have been 217 days without load shedding to date.Eskom group executive for generation Matshela Koko said Eskom planned to reduce the usage of the costly open cycle gas turbines‚ which run on diesel and have added significantly to operational costs over the past few years. The open cycle gas turbine usage declined 80% between October 2015 and January 2016‚ and spending on it was R360 million less than forecast in February.Eskom chief financial officer Anoj Singh told MPs the utility had already secured R85 billion of the R324 billion required for its build programme over the next five years. The R85 billion for 2016 and 2017 was 95%-100% signed and committed‚ with R20 billion coming from domestic private placements‚ R23 billion from government equity‚ R6.2 billion from swap restructuring‚ R23.8 billion from development finance institutions and R11.8 billion from export credit agencies.Koko reported on the significant achievements made by Eskom in its maintenance programme without having to load shed. Plant availability increased by an “impressive” 7% between October and February this year‚ compared with the 5% decrease in the same period the previous year.Planned maintenance had improved from 9.3% in December 2014 to 13.5% in December 2015. Unplanned breakdowns decreased by an average of 10% from November 2015 to February 2016 compared with the previous year.“The reduction in unplanned breakdowns contributed to improvements in availability whilst reducing open cycle gas usage‚” Koko said. He said the plan was to limit open cycle gas turbine usage to a maximum load factor of 6%.Major and significant incidents dropped from 36 in 2013 to 10 in 2015.- TMG Digital/BDLive..