Ensuring power security for the World Cup

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - South Africa's power demand is returning to mid-2008 levels amid steady growth in the country's manufacturing sector.

Pressure on power supplies from national utility Eskom could come from the mining and heavy industrial sectors, as global demand for commodities and industrial feedstocks continues to recover. Industry takes up 83% of the power supply, and the 17% taken by domestic users is steady as the population appears to be watching consumption in the face of a power tariff hike.

Added to this potentially tense power supply scene is the prospect of the soccer's World Cup tournament, which kicks off in Johannesburg in mid-June. The tournament will see games, followed by crowds of local and visiting fans, taking place at stadiums throughout the country until the final in mid-July. Eskom has said that it has a program in place to ensure the security of the power supply during the World Cup period, including an assessment of potential risks at all the utility's power stations and the prioritization of actions to mitigate the risk.

In the course of this plan, the country's only nuclear power station, the 1,800-MW Koeberg on the Atlantic coast near Cape Town, will undergo pre-emptive maintenance work on a cooling system during a shutdown of seven days next week and another shutdown sometime in April. Eskom has identified a possible risk related to the system that takes sea water to transfer heat from structures and components inside the reactor building. Short shutdowns were being implemented to allow power stations to undergo maintenance or replacements.

Tony Stott, a senior Eskom manager, said that the shutdowns were not expected to cause power shortages in the Western Cape region. He said that during the shutdowns, Eskom would supplement the supply from Koeberg with electrical power from other base-load power stations. It was unlikely that Eskom would have to incur the extra expense of running two peaking open-cycle gas turbines sited in the Western Cape.