/ 21 December 2007

SA’s era of ‘expensive, unreliable electricity’

South Africa has now entered a new era of expensive, unreliable electricity, the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) said on Friday.

The 14,2% increase next year is well in excess of current inflation and justified by Eskom as a way of generating financial capacity for essential expansion, FF+ spokesperson Willie Spies said.

However, despite the increase and the current programme of generation-capacity expansion, energy experts foresee load-shedding continuing for at least 10 years.

Prominent energy expert Andrew Kenny recently estimated it will take 10 years or more before there is a sufficient reserve margin to end load-shedding, which has now become a common occurrence, Spies said.

According to Kenny, this is the result of an acute generation-capacity shortage, steady growth in electricity demand (of twice the economic growth rate) and the fact that it will take at least six years to build the base-load stations needed.

”On the other hand, there is general consensus that South Africa’s electricity tariffs were also relatively low, until recently,” said Spies.

However, the planned increase would bring an end to this benefit enjoyed by South Africans.

”This means that South Africans will have to bear both the burden of more expensive electricity and the inconvenience of an unreliable source of supply for the next 10 years. This is an unacceptable situation that requires intervention by government in the form of subsidised investment in generation capacity,” Spies said. — Sapa