2006 :: Cape Town light’s out!

Who keeps tripping over the plug?

One of them monkeys over at the Koeberg nuclear power station in Cape Town is obviously playing his boom box too loud.

The entire business community of the Western Cape is under threat from insufficient power supply. Starting a couple of weeks ago the 2 Nuclear reactors have suffered strain and threaten to do so until mid 2007. If your business isn’t equiped I suggest you get in gear now…

Full story ::

From Business Day 28 November 2005

CAPE TOWN — Rolling blackouts or selective power cuts could be with Western Cape and Eastern Cape for several years, at least until a R1,1bn project to upgrade power lines from Mpumalanga to Koeberg is finished.

This was the message from Eskom MD for transmission Jacob Maroga on Friday.

He was reacting to mounting concern about a series of power cuts in the Cape in recent weeks that has hit businesses and communities.

The upgrading programme of the three feeder lines to the Cape from Mpumalanga, where Eskom’s main generating capacity is situated, started late last year, and was expected to be completed in May 2007, said Maroga.

He said the probability of “multiple problems” such as those seen recently in the Cape was “remote” but they could still happen. These problems, which included Koeberg nuclear power station being shut down, led to two widespread blackouts, followed by controlled “rolling blackouts”, where the power to specific areas was interrupted.

“If we have the same circumstances, we’ll have the same outcome in future. The current problem is having a number of things happening at the same time — you plan for one contingency and end up with three contingencies. You cannot do much about that,” said Maroga.

He said about 50% of the upgrading to supply lines to the Cape had been completed, and Eskom was also to build two gas-fired generation plants at Atlantis and Mossel Bay, which should be completed by 2007.

The issue around network capacity to the Cape related to how much electricity could be pushed through during peak power consumption, he said.

“As the load grows, we upgrade. It is not a question of faults on line, but how much the line can carry,” said Maroga.

The Eskom MD said upgrading projects were also on the go in North West and Limpopo, where there was major expansion in platinum mines.

The latest power cuts throughout the Cape followed a controlled shutdown of Koeberg nuclear power station last Wednesday, when an irregularity in a back-up safety system was detected. Before that a fault in the switching gear, also at Koeberg, resulted in a five-hour outage, while a veld fire under one of the feeder lines resulted in another general power failure.

Fani Zulu, Eskom’s spokesman, said the blackouts in Eastern Cape and Western Cape were not an indication that SA’s electricity-generating capacity had reached its peak. He said it was possible to increase production at coal-fired power stations in Mpumalanga, but the problem was increasing the feed to Western Cape over existing lines.

Trevor Gaunt of the University of Cape Town’s electrical engineering faculty said Eskom should speed up strengthening ties to Western Cape.

“There’s something clearly not right if they lose the electricity feed,” he said.