Energy
Eskom workers die at Ingula
Six people had died and several had been injured at an underground construction site after a tunnel platform collapsed, Eskom said yesterday. The accident took place at the Ingula site, one of Eskom’s projects aimed at boosting the power supply. Ingula is a pumped storage power station with a planned output of 1 332 megawatts. The station is 350m underground and comprises two dams – one at the top and the other at the bottom of the escarpment – underground waterways, an underground powerhouse complex, access tunnels and access roads. The power utility said the incident happened in a shaft which connected the top dam to the powerhouse. “About 15 people were working in the tunnel when a working platform failed and left several people injured,” Eskom said, adding that an investigation would be launched. – Reuters
Energy
DBSA to fund new capacity
The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) may offer as much as R4 billion in additional funding for the government’s renewable energy programme. “It is early to tell, but we are looking at an addition of about R3bn to 4bn for the third and subsequent rounds,” Cyprian Marowa, the bank’s general manager for infrastructure finance, said yesterday. The DBSA supplied R6.7bn for the first and second rounds, Marowa added. The Department of Energy is awarding contracts in five phases to build wind, solar and biomass power plants to boost the country’s capacity and cut reliance on coal . – Sapa
Media
Tribunal to rule on abuse case
The Competition Commission had brought a case against Naspers subsidiary Media24 of deliberately pushing a rival out of the community newspaper advertising market, the Competition Tribunal said yesterday. The case centres on a commission complaint that Media24, between 2004 and 2009, deliberately drove Gold-Net News out of business by setting up Goudveld Forum as a rival and running it at a loss. Media24 denies the commission’s claims. – Sapa