South Africa’s national electricity supplier, Eskom, has released a press statement warning of a high risk of rolling blackouts in the near future. The parastatel maintains that it is doing all that it can to prevent such blackouts and supply problems from occurring.
Eskom spokesperson, Hilary Joffe, stated that “We are working very closely with our large customers to see if they can reduce their load but the risk is very high. We are doing our utmost to avoid it.” The large customers are thought to be the large mining consortiums and manufacturing giants who use the majority of electricity supplied by Eskom.
Eskom stated that the rolling blackouts and load shedding would be a result of both planned and unplanned maintenance, as well as ever increasing demands for power. Maintenance has historically been conducted in the summer months but the situation this year has been strained due to additional requirements and a backlog.
Joffe went on to say that the generating plants had not been producing as Eskom had predicted and that a number of unforeseen technical problems had cropped up and were causing further delays in the maintenance schedule. Eskom has also dipped into their emergency power supplies. The blackouts would remain a high risk for consumers until the completion of the two new power stations at Medupi and Kusile, which is estimated to be in 2015.
The company has urged local consumers to further reduce their electricity consumption for the remainder of the month of February in order to prevent load shedding and rolling blackouts. In addition, it has been rumoured that South Africa has approached Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa on the Zambezi River in Mozambique to order to increase the power supply quota to the country in an attempt to avoid blackouts and load shedding.
