Full power will be restored to the Western Cape by Wednesday at the latest, Eskom said on Monday.
Eskom chief executive Thulani Gcabashe gave this assurance during a meeting with the departments of minerals and energy and public enterprises to discuss the recent power outages.
The Democratic Alliance earlier on Monday said blame for the power cuts that hit large parts of the country over the weekend and continued in the Western Cape lay squarely with Minister of Minerals and Energy Lindiwe Hendricks and the African National Congress.
DA energy spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt said that for years, the government has known that peak demand is growing rapidly and that it has not invested in new generating capacity or sufficient new distribution capacity.
Energy spokesperson Yvonne Mfolo said in a statement that what happened in the Western Cape recently was a technical problem related to the unavailability of one unit at the Koeberg power station.
Normally the other unit, together with power generated upcountry, would be sufficient to meet the electricity demand in the Western Cape.
Mfolo said government initiatives are at an advanced stage to bring an additional 2000 megawatts through independent power producers and Eskom.
These power stations will be located at Atlantis, Saldanha and Port Elizabeth, and the project is being fast-tracked to ensure it will be ready for operation during the first half of 2007.
”It is therefore disingenuous for Advocate Schmidt of the DA to take a technical and operational glitch in our electricity infrastructure and make it into political mudslinging,” said Hendricks.
”In fact, [Schmidt] was party to, and fully supported, the initiative by government to revise the regulatory framework with a view to addressing the anticipated increase in the demand of electricity actuated by the unprecedented economic growth this country currently enjoys,” said Hendricks.
Schmidt said the government has not done enough to deregulate the electricity-generating industry in order to allow independent power producers to participate. Nor has it done enough to promote use of low-energy bulbs and solar water heaters.
Hendricks responded: ”[Schmidt] knows fully well that government is spending R93-billion in the next five years alone on the electricity infrastructure.”
Eskom’s Fani Zulu said Sunday’s power failure in the Western Cape was not related to problems at Koeberg nuclear power station, which caused a power cut on Saturday. — Sapa