South Africa's power utility Eskom said that it would shut one of two units at its 1,800 MW Koeberg nuclear plant for a month for repairs.

Eskom said that it would seek to ensure sufficient generating capacity to meet demand for electricity in Africa's biggest economy, but appealed to consumers to conserve energy.

It added that "Koeberg Unit 1 is experiencing higher than normal levels of radioactivity in its primary coolant circuit as a result of one or more defective fuel rods in the reactor."

The unit would be shut on December 19th 2010, ahead of the holiday period, which falls into South Africa's summer, when demand for power is expected to be lower than usual.

The summer period is, however, also Eskom's prime maintenance period, which could lead to supply being tight in the world's top producer of platinum and a major supplier of gold.

State owned Eskom, which supplies the majority of South Africa's electricity, has been struggling to meet fast rising demand and has warned that supply would remain tight until 2015, and especially over the next two years, until its two new power plants come on stream.

South Africa's national grid nearly collapsed in early 2008 forcing mines and smelters to shut for days and costing South Africa billions of dollars in lost output.

(Sourced from www.reuters.com)