Eskom: Electricity Shortage 'Critical'
Cape Town is being subjected to power cuts again except this time the problem is not localised and is extending right across the country. The cause is once again Koeberg nuclear power station where one of the two generators tripped and shut down around 2:18am.
Despite a growing economy (and the growinf demand for power that comes with it) no new power generating plants have been built in SA well over 10 years. SA has pinned it’s hopes on the pebble bed modular nuclear reactor but that is still in it’s infancy and the prototype won’t be built for a few more years yet alone the 20 or so envisaged reactors that will be built round the country.
There are two things that are a bit disconcerting. First of all that all it takes for Eskom’s network to fall over is for a single power station to lose half it’s generating capacity. That’s a big indication that there is no redundancy or excess power generating capacity left. Secondly Eskom is stretching to meet it’s requirements in summer which doesn’t make it look to good when winter rolls around and energy usage goes up.
We await Minister of Public Enterprse Alec Erwin’s claims of “sabotage!” soon.