|
More blackouts if usage unchanged
08/05/2008 17:26 - (SA)
Johannesburg - South Africa's power supply remains tight though under control and coal stockpiles have risen from January levels, but scheduled blackouts remain a threat unless consumers further reduce demand, state utility Eskom said on Thursday.
Earlier this month Eskom suspended a nationwide load-shedding programme introduced at the start of the year, citing increased electricity savings from municipalities.
The utility had introduced the scheduled power-cuts as it struggled to satisfy increased demand due to years of underspending on generation capacity.
"From a daily ongoing perspective our system is tight but at the moment under control," Eskom spokesman Andrew Etzinger told Reuters in an interview.
"The coal stockpile days are slowly improving. We are at 15.2 days at the moment which is up from around 10 days in January so that is definitely improving," he said.
Eskom has a total net generating capacity of 37 761 MW from 11 operating coal-fired power stations, and a further 2 300 potentially available from two mothballed plants being recommissioned.
It has also attributed the electricity crunch to diminished coal stockpiles due to supply constraints.
Etzinger said Eskom had over the past month carried out a lot of additional maintainance on its generation plant and would in the next few weeks boost generation to meet expected higher demand during the just-started winter season.
Increased demand seen
"In terms of demand we are just touching 33 000 MW at the moment (and) we are seeing a steady increase in demand as we get closer to winter, but at this stage, because the days are still fairly warm, it's not all that significant," Etzinger said.
"If we do have a cold winter with successive days of cold weather over the whole country, that will push up demand well beyond last year's record peak and our system will be under severe pressure."
The power crunch led to the closure of major mines for some five days in January, while millions of homes were left without power during portions of the day. Eskom has cut supplies to mines to around 95%.
"Certain large industrial companies have below 90% (of their electricity needs) whereas others are above 95%," Etzinger
said.
"Eskom is reviewing the consumption and working together with companies. Our intention is on the one hand to assist the companies get back to 100% production but at the same time not necessarily to use 100% of historic electricity consumption."
He urged South African households and companies to put more effort into reaching a 10% target in consumption reduction in order to avert further blackouts.
"From a system point of view, in order for us to eliminate load-shedding and to stabilise the system, we do need the 10% load reduction. At the moment we are at between 5% and 8%," he said.
"The fact that load-shedding has stopped doesn't mean that the problems have gone away."
Eskom has also asked the national energy regulator to approve a requested 53% real tariff increase to help fund its multi-billion rand recapitilisation programme and a decision is due next month.
- Reuters
|
News
