SA will meet winter power needs

By Ingrid Salgado

But Gcabashe was confident that the country would meet its power needs this winter.

It anticipated peak demand of 35 100MW, with a further 1 000MW required if the winter was colder than average.

Eskom had 37 000MW available in its system and an additional 1 000MW in imports from Cahora Bassa, Mozambique's hydroelectric scheme, he said.

It had also negotiated more than 2 200MW of "interruptible loads", with certain customers agreeing to come off the system during peak times for which Eskom would pay a consideration, Gcabashe said at the opening of the African Utility Week conference in Cape Town.

He acknowledged that the system was "tight" and the reserve margin was "not where it ought to be". Gcabashe said Eskom's "enormous challenge" was to replace the capacity of its existing stations, all due to be decommissioned in the next 35 years, as well as to cater for new demand.

The power utility was due to install 8 390MW of capacity in approved projects, including power stations that were being returned to service and new coal-fired power plants. There was an additional 20 000MW in projects that were "close to business case" and a further 7 800MW in projects that were in the pre-feasibility stage.

Eskom, which will spend R84 billion over the next five years, primarily on power generation, needed to accelerate the movement of projects that were in the conceptual stage and get them to an investment decision "as quickly as possible", Gcabashe said.

He outlined a number of measures that were being implemented in the Western Cape, which was plagued by power outages this year due to transmission problems as well as a mechanical failure at the Koeberg nuclear power station.

In the short term, Eskom had embarked on an aggressive demand-side management programme that aimed to either shift or eliminate 400MW out of the peak demand period and was sourcing additional emergency generation capacity in the form of three 22MW units that would be operational by the end of May.

Published on the web by Business Report on May 9, 2006.