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South African utility Eskom has said that the country will have a power surplus during this year’s football World Cup, but that supply will be very tight from 2013 to 2014, and the country will have to save energy to avoid blackouts.
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Brian Dames, the Chief Officer for Generation Business at Eskom, told a parliamentary committee that electricity supply would be under pressure in the years after the tournament. He added that: “The power supply is going to be extremely tight from 2013 and 2014 until we have base load power stations coming in. It is very important that as a country, we work together to prevent any type of power interruptions.” Dames said that power saving was crucial to avoid any enforced power cuts in the future. The utility, which provides 95 per cent of South Africa’s power, has suffered from a lack of investment in new capacity as demand soared.
Dames said that Eskom is playing catch up on its infrastructure, and would be constrained financially after the country’s power regulator rejected its application for a 35 per cent tariff increase in each of the next three years.
The regulator granted Eskom a 24.8 per cent increase this year, and increases of 25.8 per cent and 25.9 per cent for the following two financial years.