Eskom boss: No load-shedding

Johannesburg - Eskom had benefited from last year's electricity crisis by being forced to reflect on its role, the power company's chief executive Jacob Maroga said in Johannesburg on Wednesday.

Maroga believes Eskom is in a much better position now than it was last year and said that, as far as load-shedding was concerned, "my gut feel is that we're okay for the next 24 months".

However, Eskom had still not thought of "in an integrated way" the next level of infrastructure the country needed, he told the Gordon Institute of Business Science.

"There is a creeping infrastructure backlog that we need to respond to in an integrated way," he said.

Eskom spent R46bn in the last financial year and intends spending R87bn in 2008/2009, R104bn in 2009/2010, and R84bn in 2010/2011, but does not know where it is going to get the money.

At the moment it is building three power stations at a cost of $23bn.

"The power stations we are building are the biggest in the world," Maroga said.

One of these, Medupi in Lephalale, was the country's largest construction project, he said.

He acknowledged, though, that coal remained Eskom's single biggest cost and that the country could end up paying for its resultant large carbon dioxide footprint - possibly even financially.

It had nonetheless decided to stick with coal in the meantime, because nuclear energy cost four times more and, "at the end of the day, the South African public has to fund the cost".

He emphasised that it remained committed to reducing its footprint.

Forms of energy generation under consideration included nuclear, wind, solar and hydro, and independent power producers also had a role to play.

- Sapa