City officials in Durban and electricity parastatal Eskom are set for a showdown over unexpected power cuts imposed on residents because of load-shedding.
eThekwini city manager Dr Mike Sutcliffe said on Wednesday the city wanted Eskom to improve the planning that should accompany load-shedding demands.
He was concerned that the present situation in which Eskom simply went ahead with power cuts without consulting cities could negatively affect Durban and had the potential to drive away investors.
Eskom on Wednesday warned that power capacity will be strained in 2008, but gas turbines stations and the reopening of old stations will help to deal with the load.
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Sipho Neke from the Eskom media desk said the maintenance of Eskom's generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure would continue until the end of summer, bringing with it the likelihood of further load-shedding.
"This is critical to ensure optimum performance of the system (during winter). This means the risk of load-shedding remains," said Neke.
Eskom appealed to all South Africans to use electricity sparingly in the peak times of 7am to 10am and 6pm to 9pm.
Speaking of the often unpredictable load-shedding schemes, Eskom had thrust on cities in 2007, Sutcliffe said the national energy supplier "could be planning issues a lot better".
He said while large industries and residents were largely accepting of the need for load-shedding, the impact of power cuts could have a devastating psychological impact on communities.
Eskom said it would work on improving capacity by bringing previously moth-balled stations in Mpumalanga back into service and building new stations in Mossel Bay and Atlantis.
By 2012, South Africa should have a new coal-fired power station as well as a new pump storage power station.
Durban Electricity head Sandile Maphumulo has reiterated that the city and its sprawling suburbs would remain on standby to shed 100MW.
While Maphumulo was loathe to speculate about whether Eskom would ask the city to increase its shedding load, Sutcliffe said he would oppose such a request.
Plan
"At the moment the way (Eskom) deals with it (shedding) is indicative of the old national parastatal approach - where they did all the thinking without working co-operatively with cities. If people know, they can plan around it. From our side we can argue that things could be a whole lot better planned.
"When one talks with industry they don't have a problem with shedding, but they want it to be well planned. We are stressing that we need a plan and now that Polokwane is over, we can begin discussions these issues," Sutcliffe said.
Eskom spokesperson Andrew Etzinger said network and distribution problems could also rear their ugly head in future.
On a municipal level, Durban has invested an estimated R90-million on upgrading its network by 2010. A sum of R30-million alone will go toward a transformer at the Klaarwater substation, where 40 percent of the city's electricity is handled.
- This article was originally published on page 1 of Daily News on January 03, 2008
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