A media report quoted Mr Brian Dames CEO of Eskom as saying that South Africa' power supply situation will be critical for the next two years and tight for the following three years.
Despite this, Mr Dames played down the impact on the situation of the six month delay in bringing the first generating set at the Medupi power station on line.
Presenting Eskom's interim results for the six months to end September, Mr Dames said contractor Hitachi had made commitments to bring the first unit at Medupi on line by May 2013. That represents a six month delay on when Eskom had originally planned to have the first unit on line.
Mr Dames said that despite this, the revised May 2013 schedule was still in line with the timeframe in the 2010 Integrated Resource Plan accepted by government as the country's power supply blueprint through to 2030.
Dames pointed out the power situation had been mitigated by a drop in demand for electricity to levels below what Eskom had factored into its planning. Reason for this was the slow down in the South African economy.
He said electricity sales for the six months to end-September had risen just 0.9% compared with the same period of 2010 against a predicted rise of 1.4%.
Two of the main reasons were that winter demand from large power users was significantly below expectation while demand patterns also reflected weaker than expected economic activity.
Asked whether he was implying the six month delay at Medupi would have no negative impact on the country’s power supply situation Mr Dames replied that "I can't say there will be no impact. It would have been nice to have the power on line sooner given our maintenance requirements."
Asked about possible knock on effects that could be caused to the other five generating sets being built at Medupi, Eskom CFO Mr Paul O’Flaherty replied that "We cannot afford any knock on delays and are working very closely with the contractors on this issue."
Mr Dames indicated that Eskom now faced a major problem in terms of a backlog on essential maintenance caused by the need to keep plant running through winter given the problems at Duvha and Koeberg.
(Sourced from www.miningmx.com)
