The Cape Town Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry has appealed to businesses to re-examine the way in which they use energy in order to save electricity.
The demand for power is steadily increasing and Eskom has asked householders to switch off geysers and other appliances during the evening peak hour.
Chamber president Janine Myburgh said on Tuesday it was clear that there would be no "quick fix" as Eskom simply could not generate enough power to meet the needs of the growing economy and maintain healthy reserve capacity.
It would be several years before new base-load power stations were in operation. "In the circumstances, it makes sense for companies to do energy audits and find ways to use less electricity.
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Solutions may be as simple as solar geysers ... or using solar power to preheat water for industrial boilers and doing careful checks on the energy efficiency of all new equipment and machinery before buying," she said.
Many Western Cape companies had suffered severe losses last year and spent millions of rands on standby generating equipment.
"Now we need to take a more long-term view and make plans to use less power as this will not only benefit the bottom line, but will increase energy security."
She said the country had reached a stage where it was in many companies' interests to make themselves as independent from the electricity grid as possible.
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This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Times on January 31, 2007
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