Power supply stable despite demand

Johannesburg - South African power utility Eskom on Tuesday said the power system was expected to continue to perform well, despite increased electricity demand.

The utility, which has been closely watched in case it drops the ball during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, said it had experienced increased demand due to the recent bout of cold weather.

Consumption went up significantly in the last week, with the power system reaching a high peak demand of 36 716MW during this period.

"The power system has performed reasonably well in supplying bulk electricity in the past week. As intended, plant performance has been maintained at a stable level and the required level of generation plant availability and reliability has been achieved to meet customers' electricity demands," Eskom said.
   
While there has been no load shedding since late April 2008, localised power outages continue to occur. They have been blamed on the nature of the electrical system, overloading and copper cable theft.

"Power outages experienced during the World Cup period are comparable to the same time period as last year, with slight improvement. We estimate that approximately 1%, that is 40 000 of 41 million customers, were without power for short periods," Eskom said.

The utility said sites that are critically dependent on electricity - such as hospitals and information technology centres, major sports stadiums and media centres set up specifically for the World Cup - would have backup power supply to ensure no disruption in the event of an electricity network fault.

"Hence, Eskom is confident that the World Cup will proceed without power interruption, but cannot guarantee that localised network problems won't result in temporary supply problems to localised areas around the country," the utility said.

 - I-Net Bridge