SA braces for more power cuts

Eskom says power blackouts will resume month end

Load shedding will resume at the end of this month as South Africans are not doing enough to save electricity. This is the word from Eskom.

Today the power utility said electricity supply had stablised but the country remained vulnerable.

The last few weeks have been bright for South Africans. Eskom's recovery plan has stabilised the power supply crisis and beefed up its coal stock piles, but the situation is by no means back to normal.

"We have been able to stabilise the system to a reasonable degree but we remain vulnerable… We spelt out to the big users how we would introduce the power rationing phase, this includes the scheduled load shedding,” says Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin.

Big business has shaved power consumption by 10% and has done so at the expense of their bottom line. However, smaller businesses and households haven't done enough to reduce their demand by the stipulated 10%. From March 31 scheduled load shedding will resume. However, those who've cut consumption will be exempt.

"We started with the process of giving mines the additional power that they required, and we are talking to individual mines. They have given us their requirements and over the next few days we will be ramping up… close to 95% that is required," says Eskom CEO Jacob Moroga.

This may help the mining sector but overall economists are concerned about the impact this will have on economic growth, job creation and poverty alleviation.

"If we have to take great chunks of electrical power… out of commission, that's going to have an impact on the work that can be done by the economy. If such cutbacks are required it might be inevitable that the jobs in the economy are hurt," says Econometrix economist Tony Twine.

Eskom says the problems are likely to continue for the next five to eight years, at which stage new power stations will come online.