Dark warning from Erwin
11/02/2008 16:03  - (SA)  

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Cape Town - South Africans could expect tight energy supply for another four years, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin said in Cape Town on Monday.

The country's energy supply problems were no different from that of other developing countries, he told a media briefing in Parliament.

"We are in exactly the same position as every other developing country."

The current reserve margin was 8% while the National Energy Regulator wanted 16%. The building of gas fired power stations and co-generation projects were being sped up to ensure that by 2010 reserve margin was closer to 15%.

A more efficient use of energy should result in a year-on-year growth in a demand of between 4.1% and 3.6%, he said.

"It was the big jump in peak demand, year-on-year, of just under 5% [that resulted in this crisis]."

Not another Alcan

The country would not entertain the possibility of constructing another large smelter the size of Alcan once it had been completed.

The electricity emergency plan was working and had resulted in a "significant" decrease in demand.

"It's clear that business and industry have come to the table. Currently we are saving more than the 10% target, but it's early days."

Efforts to reduce the mining industry's demand were going "quite well". Further discussions were underway to see if the 90% of capacity they were currently operating at could be increased.

At least half of the 40 000MW the country expected to be able to generate in the next 20 years would come from nuclear reactors, he said.

A Koeberg-type pressure water reactor would not be on stream before 2015, while a pebble bed modular reactor would not be on line before 2013, he said.

Minister of Minerals and Energy Buyelwa Sonjica said a nuclear strategy would be finalised this year.

Lawsuits

Asked if businesses had brought lawsuits against Eskom for lost revenue caused by power cuts, Erwin said this would depend on the contracts they had signed with the company.

"Yes, there may be some cases, but I can't quantify that," he said.

Mines were guaranteed power by Eskom, failing which they could invoke a "force majeure" clause in their contracts. This had been invoked recently, resulting in production being halted and workers being pulled out of the mines.

Contracts with the mines had been redefined, he said, so that Eskom would now supply "firm power". This involved a guaranteed level of supply with a specified amount of advance warning were Eskom unable to meet this.

Intense negotiations

He said Cahora Bassa in Mozambique was a "very important supplier" to South Africa at the moment, providing about 1 200MW out of its total capacity of 1 600MW.

Eskom was in "intense negotiations" with other producers of electricity from whom it would buy power.

"Clearly we are interested in that," he said, adding that it was a "significant break" from tradition.

The quickest would be some form of gas fired power station.

Erwin showed his lighter side when asked if there were plans to use South Africa's four warships, which could each generate about 700KW, to help with supply.

"We're going to sail them up the Orange (River). The only problem is getting Namibia's approval and if we're going to be able to get all four of them up," he joked.

"No, frankly it will be very difficult to use a navy ship, they have other things to do."

- SAPA

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