Boom in generator, candle sales

2006-03-24 14:49

Johannesburg - The country's persistent power blackouts have produced an unexpected boom in sales of power generators and candles.

"There has been a massive increase," says Leon Maas sales manager for Johannesburg-based company Generator Logic.

"We used to quote a four week delivery period, but now we're saying eight to 12 weeks because of the demand," he says.

The company recently received an order for a large generator from the company that manufactures the world famous Mrs Balls chutney.

"They can't have 50, 60, people standing around next to the production line when there's a power failure, they had to do something."

According to Maas the recent power blackouts in Cape Town set off a run on generators.

"It (the blackouts) was a nightmare, the guys were suffering," Maas said.

Entire Western Cape without power

At times the entire Western Cape was without power after a bolt in the Koeberg nuclear power facility severely curtailed the available power supply, which had a knock-on effect on national supplies.

The SA Chamber of Business warned that the power cuts were having serious effects on business activity, estimating that the Cape power cuts cost business at least R500 million in losses.

Having no power is not a new experience for South Africa's poor who are already well versed in finding electricity-free ways of cooking their food and bathing and warming themselves.

For these people braziers, paraffin stoves, candles and wood fires are an integral part of daily life.

Charm wearing thin

But for their better off fellow South Africans, the charm of a row of pretty candles and a quick flick through the Mr Delivery menu can wear thin.

And as the laptop battery life runs low ahead of an important work presentation, the purchase of a personal generator may be justified.

It can cost about R10 000 for a smaller generator set that can power household needs. A larger generator for company use can cost as much as R500 000.

The smaller sets use about two and a half litres of diesel an and must be serviced every 250 hours at a cost of about R1500.

Maas said that finance houses like Absa and Wesbank have also started offering lending facilities for their purchase.

Nico van Rensburg, sales manager of Price's Candles said that their factory had started running extra machines to cope with demand.

In the Western Cape the company was raking in six months' sales of the simple household candles in just one month, said van Rensburg.

Candle sales up 10%

Sales in other areas were also about 10% up on normal sales.

Yet another power failure hit some of Johannesburg's suburbs on Friday morning.

Bear Stubbs, co-owner of Parkhurst's Scallywags nursery school said that they would have to cook lunch for their charges at the nearby home of one of the parents.

In the meantime, another parent had provided an additional gas cooker so that they could prepare the usual warm porridge the children are served for breakfast.

City Power spokesman Sol Masolo attributed the failure to a trip at a sub-station.

Technicians had restored full power to the affected parts of Greenside, Parkhurst and Emmarentia by mid-morning.

A similar power failure in Johannesburg's north western suburbs on Thursday night may have been caused by moisture that entered a damaged cable Masolo said, but this is not the final verdict as an investigation into this interruption was still underway.

City power 'able to cope'

Asked whether City Power was ready to handle the power supply needs of the coming winter, Masolo said, "We are of the view that we will be able to cope."

Masolo said that network upgrade projects were underway replacing the old equipment with new.

Last year the National Energy Regulator said the City Power network was in a serious state of disrepair.

"Even if the maintenance and refurbishment plans are properly executed each year, it will still take a number of years to bring the network back to the required level of reliability," said an NER statement on the results of an audit of the company.

An NER spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the latest power problems.

Asked whether Eskom was ready for the coming winter power supply demands, spokesman Fani Zulu said simply, "Yes".

- SAPA