Enigin Update - South Africa Facing Rolling Black-Outs?
SOUTH Africa could be facing rolling black-outs as winter hits and temperatures plummet, but a call for further energy efficiency discipline may stave off such drastic action.
"People should be disciplined, they should be energy conscious," commented Louis Pieterse, Johannesburg's City Power spokesman, after concern has been raised following the posting of a "load shedding" roster on the city's website, indicating that the next step will be the feared "rolling blackouts".
"Basically we update the schedule every year.....but that does not imply that updating means load shedding," Pieterse said.
South Africa suffered badly from rostered and rotating power cuts in 2007 and 2008 when Eskom, the country’s state utility company, were confronted by dire infrastructure and coal supply problems. During that time the cuts lasted four hours at a time, leading the National Energy Regulator of South Africa to report an estimated R50 billion ($7.16 billion) worth of loss to the economy.
The City of Cape Town also publicised a load shedding roster today, even though they have been running an ad campaign on the need for the populace to reduce consumption by at least the 10 percent minimum saving that Eskom has advocated, as we have reported earlier this year.
The campaign was also to remind people that by July 1 there will be a 25 percent power price increase. Despite the increasing costs and the campaign Capetonians were not on target to reacht he energy use reduction targets.
We reported last month that Eskom chief executive, Brian Dames, said the company had so far managed to "keep the lights on" during the first quarter of the year due to the energy saving efforts of business, industry and the population. He did warn that this needed to continue as demand would remain in the balance over the next five years, until new power station capacity comes online.
Regarding the threat of rolling black-outs Eskom spokeswoman Hilary Joffe said, "We are determined to avoid that. We are managing the system very carefully but can't do it alone, we do need energy efficiency.”
Enigin Distributors across South Africa have been helping businesses and organisations to reduce their energy demand by improve energy efficiency, also lowering utility bills, all by implementing energy saving solutions from Enigin Plc.
Picture of Cape Town by Derek Keats
