30 days of cuts ahead - DA
2006-02-24 10:26
Cape Town - In the next three months Cape Town power station Koeberg's Unit Two will have to be refuelled, a process which will
see
the power station forced to shut down for a minimum of 30 days, resulting in
extensive blackouts for that period, says Democratic Alliance (DA) minerals
and
energy spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt.
To date Eskom and the provincial government had failed to be upfront
about
this, argued Schmidt in a statement on Friday.
Following the mechanical damage suffered to Unit One in December last
year,
Koeberg had been entirely reliant on Unit Two to produce power for the
Western
Cape, and would be up until the end of this year, as it would take eight
months
to repair the damage done to the generator in Unit One, he noted.
When Unit Two tripped last Sunday, it was not brought back on line
within
the required timeframe and, because Koeberg is a nuclear power plant,
regulations required that the whole plant be shut down as a result.
"Because of the sensitive nature of nuclear power stations, Eskom has
only
been able to bring Unit Two back to maximum capacity over a six day period -
the reason why Cape Town and the Western Cape has been forced to experience
extensive rolling blackouts all week."
However, what Eskom has failed to tell the people of the Western Cape is
that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Bad planning and the continuing
lack
of an adequate contingency plan mean that Eskom has failed to cater for
refueling, a process which must happen in nuclear power plants every 18
months,
as the uranium-enriched core needs to be replaced."
Schmidt said Eskom knew in December, when Unit One broke down, that Unit
Two was due to be refuelled.
"However, Eskom has failed to source alternatives with the result that,
in
the next two months, Unit Two must be refuelled and there is no contingency
plan
in place.
"Refueling is a time-consuming and slow process. It will take a minimum
of 30 days but could take as long as three months.
"When it does happen the Western Cape will be forced to deal with
extensive and widespread blackouts for the duration of the refueling
process."
The question now was why Eskom has not been upfront about this
unavoidable
process. There could be only two explanations, he said.
Schmidt suggested first that Eskom was simply unaware that this problem
existed and bad planning on its part meant it was desperately trying to get
its
house in order behind the scenes.
The second explanation was that, following intensive briefings with
Premier
Ebrahim Rasool over this past week, in which Eskom must have spelt out this
inevitable problem to the provincial government, the Premier instructed
Eskom
not to make this issue known to the public until after the election on March
1.
Schmidt called on Eskom and Premier Rasool "to come clean" with the
people
of the Western Cape.