'SA should brace for more power cuts' - Eskom

By Rhodé Marshall
11 January 2008

Eskom says that South Africans should brace itself for more power cuts over the next five to seven years. The power supplier says that in all likelihood load shedding would probably occur on Friday (today) after various areas across the country experienced power cuts on Thursday.

"The risk is always there that we will (have) load shedding during the cause of today. The basic reason for load shedding is that we have a generation plant shortage in South Africa," says Andrew Etzinger, General Manager of demand-side management at Eskom.

He says that it has been said a lot that there are technical problems within Eskom causing the power outages but that those are merely routine technical problems that occur.

Electricity users are warned that power cuts is a long-term problem that they unfortunately will be faced with.

"The weekdays are a lot tighter than weekends and when we do implement load shedding we do that on a rotational basis at sites around the country," he said.

Etzinger says Eskom tries to limit interruptions to two hours and 30 minutes. He says that the country is not over the worst stage of load shedding yet.

"This is a situation we will find ourselves in from time to time or even on a regular basis for the next couple of years."

A load shedding schedule can be accessed at http://www.eskom.co.za/.