By Gershwin Wanneburg and Sapa
Demand for electricity has remained high in recent months, supporting public enterprises minister Brigitte Mabandla's view that power saving has been "woefully" inadequate.
This was evident from a monthly report released by Statistics SA, which came after warnings by Mabandla that the country may face more controlled blackouts in 2007.
Mabandla said that the small reduction in power consumption could force Eskom to implement more blackouts, known as "load-shedding".
The load-shedding programme earlier in 2008 grounded the mining industry for days and slashed economic growth.
Eskom plans to spend more than R340-billion over the next several years to upgrade its energy grid in order to meet the demands of South Africa's growing economy.
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The country's precarious electricity position threatens future growth and analysts have warned that the economy could be depressed even further if Mabandla carries out her threat.
Electricity consumed in the third quarter of 2008 fell by 1.2 percent compared with the third quarter of 2007, Stats SA said.
Between the second and third quarters of 2008, consumption actually increased by 1.2 percent.
The government has asked industries to cut power use by 10 percent in a bid to defeat the energy crunch.
Authorities have also urged residential consumers to be sparing with electricity. But electricity consumption has consistently remained high.
Dawie Roodt, an economist with Efficient Group, said it was also worrying that electricity production had not been stepped up much.
"This isn't good news," Roodt said. "We should see year-on-year increases of 3 percent - at least - just to keep up with the economy."
Roodt said the increases ought in fact to be 4-5 percent to ensure growth.
"This latest figure means that we could have less energy available for the economy," he added.
"One of the explanations for the decrease is that they may have closed down power stations for maintenance work."
The estimated production of electricity in September 2008 decreased by 0.7 percent compared with the same month in 2007.
Electricity production for the third quarter of 2008 decreased 1.8 percent compared to the same period in 2007.
However, the estimated production of electricity increased 1.3% percent between August and September in 2008.
Electricity consumption in August decreased by 2.8 percent year-on-year; by 0.7 percent in July; by 2.3 percent in June and by 2.5 percent in May.
Between April and January, year-on-year consumption fluctuated each month.
The changes ranged between 0.8 percent and 3.2 percent.
- This article was originally published on page 8 of Daily News on November 10, 2008
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