No more power to the people

2006-02-26 18:15

Lizel Steenkamp, Marlene Malan and Quinton Mtyala

Johannesburg - South Africa has reached its limit in supplying electricity.

Experts warned this week that the rest of the country could expect similar serious power failures to the ones Cape Town has experienced since November.

Industry players believed the crisis was a result of Eskom's negligence related to ineffectual and inadeqaute maintenance, a lack of long-term planning, and a loss of engineers and technicians.

Unlike in the past, when there was an excess of electricity, South Africa has reached a point where, during peak demand periods as in winter, electricity demand will exceed Eskom's ability to supply.

Experts said Eskom could not solve the electricty problem in time.

Energy expert Andrew Kenny said: "We don't have enough electricity because we don't have enough power stations."

Must prepare for regular cuts

He said international standards dictated that any country should have a reserve capacity of 15%. South Africa had only 5% capacity in reserve.

Kenny said: "People will need to prepare themseves for regular outages. Eskom says things are OK, but they are not, it will get worse."

Although technicians and engineers warned Eskom some time ago about the impending power crisis, Eskom expanded service delivery to a point where it did not have enough electricity to supply all the demands.

According to Eskom's predictions, it would not have been able to maintain peak time electricity demands by 2007 and normal demand capacity by 2010.

Eskom has struggled since November to meet demand.

Since 2000, Johannesburg residents have experienced between 700 and 800 power cuts a year.

The shortage of 800MW of power that left the Western Cape crippled on Sunday and Monday, signalled power rationing for South Africans.

The national electricity regulator admitted that the situation in Johannesburg and Cape Town had set off alarm bells, and it believed the crisis was a result of inadequate maintenance and a lack of qualified personnel.

Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu believes that, at this stage, it does not seem as if Capetonians will have to face a dark, cold winter.

He denied that Eskom had neglected to do proper maintenance.

Network upgrade by 2010

"Eskom will spend R300m this year on maintenance at Koeberg. The nature of our business demands that we plan 20 to 25 years ahead. We did that."

Sila Zimu, acting CEO of City Power in Johannesburg, said power cuts could be blamed on the fact that 70% of the city's network was between 20 and 40 years old.

The network upgrade would be completed by 2010.

Meanwhile, some suburbs of Johannesburg were again briefly without power on Saturday morning.

A City Power spokesperson was not available to explain why, but a recorded message on their number said it was a technical fault.

- City Press