It's not Koeberg's fault' 20/01/2006 20:27 - (SA) ! Related Articles # Power failure hits Cape Town # Koeberg is 'overworked' # Jhb power back on # Jhb powerless against outages
Cape Town - An electricity black-out in Cape Town has nothing to do with the maintenance work at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, Eskom and the city of Cape Town said on Friday.
"It has nothing to do with us, it has to do with the City of Cape Town," said Carien de Villiers, a spokesperson for Koeberg.
Charles Kadalie of the City of Cape Town said the black-out started at about 14.4, when a fault occurred at the Montague main station which supplied incoming electricity from Eskom to the city.
"There was a (power) trip," Kadalie said, adding that a technical team was trying to ascertain the cause of the black-out.
"It has nothing to do with Koeberg."
Kadalie said the city was "synergising" its gas turbines to augment electrical power to the city.
He said a significant portion of the city was without power including Milnerton, large portions of the central business ditrict, Woodstock and surrounding areas.
Mmmmmm.............
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
Power failure hits Cape Town 20/01/2006 15:59 - (SA) Click Here To Play! Related Articles # Gas may solve power crisis # Koeberg is 'overworked' # Jhb power back on # Jhb powerless against outages
Cape Town - Cape Town's CBD and surrounding areas were without power on Friday afternoon following loss of the main power feed from Eskom.
"We have lost the incoming supply from Eskom through the main station at Montague Gardens," Charles Kadalie, manager for public lighting for the City of Cape Town said.
"We are trying to establish where the fault lies."
Areas affected are the Cape Town CBD, the western seaboard and parts of Milnerton.
Kadalie told Sapa power was being restored in some areas and he expected things to "return to normal shortly".
Cape Town has been plagued by power by power failures in recent months.
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
Default Nuclear Disaster swept under the table by ANC GOV Some resources of mine insinuate that plants and wildlife near Koeberg is dying something serious happened warn people to not go close to this area as at least 100 km are the ANC Gov trying to sweep a nuclear disaster under the carpet or are they nonchalant. Other reports say Bird poo is causing this power outages, which is absurd.
Repairs at the Koeberg nuclear power station could take -- in "a worst-case scenario" -- nine months to carry out, says Eskom's acting chief executive, Jacob Maroga.
Cape Town has been hit by four outages in the past three months and is dependent on Koeberg, especially during peak demand times.
Maroga said South Africa is still looking for the required parts to repair the unit-one generator at Koeberg, and while the intention is to return the generator to service in the shortest possible time to meet electricity demand, it will take a minimum of three months to repair.
However, he acknowledged that the repairs "could take longer", or as long as nine months. Eskom will inform the media and the public "in case it takes longer than the current plan", he told MPs serving on the National Assembly minerals and energy portfolio committee on Monday.
Sketching recent outages in Cape Town, Maroga said damage to unit one was caused by a foreign object -- a bolt -- found in the generator after it had been returned to service following a planned maintenance shutdown.
"Based on available information, this is the cause of the fault," he said, noting that this occurred on December 25.
Cooling systems of the stator and rotor of the generator were affected and more than half of the bars in the generator were damaged, and these will have to be replaced. There are, however, no problems in the reactor and the turbine at the plant.
He reported that on November 11 -- when the Cape Town area suffered its first electricity outage -- there was a mechanical failure on a 400kV switch-gear during switching operations in the transmission substation at Koeberg.
Automatic protection measures occurred when Koeberg tripped, resulting in a 90-minute transmission shutdown. However, the power outage took "much longer" in parts of Cape Town.
The outage on November 16 was caused by a fire under the Muldersvlei-Droëriver 400kV power line. This led to a short circuit and the line tripped. This time, the "unit two" generator at Koeberg was affected, and the power outage lasted 60 minutes on the Cape network.
Currently supply to the Cape is being handled by Koeberg's unit-two generator and transmission transfers from the rest of the country.
Another power outage occurred on November 23 as a result of a controlled shutdown of Koeberg's unit-two generator.
Indicating that power outages may not be a thing of the past, Maroga said that emergencies in the Cape could include unplanned shutdowns of a Koeberg unit and loss of one of the transmission lines.
In the event of such emergencies, power could be brought in from various sources, including from Eskom gas turbines at Acacia in Cape Town and at Port Rex in East London as well as from the Orange River Hydro scheme.
Democratic Alliance MP Hendrik Schmidt said he is alarmed that there are not back-up plans in place to avoid outages, while Inkatha Freedom Party MP Eric Lucas expressed concern that it had not been a condition that the original supplier of the Koeberg parts -- now being sought -- should provide replacement parts.
Maroga said about R5,5-billion is being spent on Eskom's maintenance of and investment in transmission lines, grid strengthening and gas turbines in the period from 2002 to June 2007. -- I-Net Bridge
Default Re: Nuclear Disaster swept under the table by ANC GOV Ek wonder nou oor wat Siener gese het,nee dit kan nie wees nie,ek meen die mense weet wat hulle doen. __________________
Originally Posted by piett Ek wonder nou oor wat Siener gese het,nee dit kan nie wees nie,ek meen die mense weet wat hulle doen.
Ga, ek stem saam die mense weet wat hulle doen, maar sprinkane, dit is 'n grap, ek bly weg van die Kaap af, gelukkig is ek darem amper 300km vandaar __________________ Veg om te wen!!!
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
Ghost towns' in the Cape 01/03/2006 15:19 PM By: Lauren Hess Print story on Email Story Falk AdSolution
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Cape Town - Maynard Mall in Wynberg Cape Town is normally a bustling hive of a shopping centre. There's normally not enough space to walk, let alone shop.
But the power outages that have been plaguing the Western Province have left the mall looking like a ghost-town.
"It's dead quiet," said one shopper who braved the darkness.
The shopper who wished to remain anonymous went looking for supplies for the next outage. "There wasn't a battery in sight," she said.
"It's all in darkness, the shop assistants are just sitting around in the mall because what can they do?"
Passengers stranded
Meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands of passengers who used the train service on Tuesday had to contend with delays of up to three hours.
Metrorail urged commuters to find alternative transport.
On Wednesday, an election day and public holiday, it looked as if everything was back to normal but the transport utility could not make any promises.
"There are no train delays at present but that might change later in the day," said one call operator at Metrorail's customer helpline.
Eskom originally promised that by last week Wednesday, the power cuts would end. But for the rest of the week they continued.
It then pledged that by that Saturday, there would be no more outages and full power would be restored to the province. And then, on Tuesday morning this week Capetonians woke up once again without electricity.
Costing millions
The SA Chamber of Businesses (Sacob) said that the power outages had cost firms in the Cape approximately R500m.
On Tuesday at the Table View branch of KFC, staff were trying to sell off the last chicken. The manager of the branch, Maurice Smith, said that business had dropped by some 2%.
"Normally, we get about 700 customers a day, now (with the power outages) we get about 400."
The electricity cuts are also affecting businesses in other ways.
Staff at the Mitchell's Plain branch of Pick 'n Pay usually use the public address system to call fellow staff members from one side of the shop to the other. However, when Bhuti Igwele, the manager of the branch had to be called, the staff member had to walk all the way to the other end of the shop to get him.
No more candles
Igwele said that while there had been a lot more buying of gas lamps, there were "no more candles left".
Makro in Ottery said that after re-stocking on gas lamps just last week, they had completely sold out.
Some have had to come up with some innovative ways to serve their customers. "We're serving customer with torches," says the manager of Campwell's hardware store in Bergvliet, Oscar Naylor. "It's very romantic," he quipped.
Evan Torrins, marketing manager for Cape Union Mart in Cape Town said that they had been very busy and that they had also sold out of items such as gas lamps in some stores but that they had "ordered a significant amount of stock".
Meanwhile, Sapa reported that Wallace Mgoqi, city manager of Cape Town said people in the province should brace themselves for more power cuts on Wednesday.
After that, Capetonians will just have to wait and watch.
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
ANC hints at DA role in Koeberg 'sabotage' 28/02/2006 23:20 PM By: Beeld, I-Net Bridge, Sapa and Reuters Print story on Email Story Falk AdSolution
Cape Town - An announcement on Tuesday that politically motivated sabotage at Koeberg nuclear power station was to blame for outages in the Western Cape, has led to a barrage of accusations on the eve of local government elections.
One of the two generators at Koeberg was damaged in December, leading to power cuts in the Western Cape in the past month.
Early on Tuesday morning, the other generator at Koeberg was shut down automatically due to a trip in the high-voltage power line from the north.
The Cape African National Congress - although not directly blaming the Democratic Alliance - said they always had been suspicious about the interruptions, "especially on the eve of the local-government elections".
The ANC said in a statement: "We want to point out that political parties - including the Democratic Alliance - have used the power failures for cheap political gain.
"Then, there's the DA's standpoint that anything bad for the country, is good for the DA."
The ANC's provincial leader, James Nguculu, could not be reached for comment on whether he thought the DA was to blame or whether his party had proof for such an allegation.
The DA mayoral candidate for Cape Town, Helen Zille, lashed out, accusing Public Enterprise Minister Alec Erwin of abusing his power.
"When the first reactor was switched off in December, it was the result of 10 years of neglect and lack of maintenance.
"Last week, the Western Cape was promised that everything was OK.
"Now, a day before the elections, they come with this sabotage story.
"This shows a disregard for voters."
Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo expressed shock at the announcement that sabotage was suspected.
Mfeketo said: "We have had our suspicions and now I hope that this investigation will quickly get to the bottom of this matter.
"It is in the interests of the city, its residents, its economy, its visitors and Eskom that this matter be cleared up as soon as possible."
Earlier, Minerals and Energy Minister Lindiwe Hendricks said law enforcement agencies were closing in on "culprits" who'd played a role in Tuesday's cut.
She said it had become clear that the "recent event" could not be linked just to "inadequate transmission and generation capacity".
Hendricks said: "Investigations in this regard are at an advanced stage and an announcement will be made soon.
"There is growing evidence of a linkage of some of these events to resistance to the transformation drive by the government."
In another development, an unknown organisation claimed responsibility for sabotaging Koeberg in an e-mail sent to a Johannesburg radio station.
Talk Radio 702 received an e-mail which read: "...as you are fond of electricity cut-offs on the poor and oppressed in South Africa, so taste a bit of that which they taste!
"And, let your businesses lose out, in an economy where the poor see no benefits."
The e-mail from the organisation - which the radio station did not name - threatened to continue with the "raids".
The office of national police commissioner Jackie Selebi confirmed on Tuesday that investigations were under way.
Spokesperson Dennis Adriao said: "Yes, I do know about the group. Investigations are at a sensitive stage.
"There's nothing that gives the impression at the moment that the group is from Cape Town."
Adriao said he did not want to comment any further at this stage.
A source in the police said a hoax was suspected, and similar false claims had been made in the past.
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
Koeberg: Saboteurs own up 28/02/2006 19:15 PM Print story on Email Story Falk AdSolution
Johannesburg - An unknown organisation claimed responsibility on Tuesday for sabotaging the Koeberg nuclear power station, in an e-mail sent to a Johannesburg radio station.
Talk Radio 702 received an e-mail which read: ".... As you are fond of electricity cut-offs on the poor and oppressed in South Africa, so taste a bit of that which they taste! And let your businesses lose out, in an economy where the poor see no benefits."
The e-mail from the organisation - which the radio station did not name - threatened to continue with the raids.
The office of national police commissioner Jackie Selebi on Tuesday confirmed that investigations were under way.
Spokesperson Dennis Adriao said: "Yes, I do know about the group. Investigations are at a sensitive stage.
"There's nothing that gives the impression at the moment that the group is from Cape Town."
Adriao said he did not want to comment any further at this stage.
A source in the police said a hoax was suspected, and similar false claims had been made in the past.
Shock at announcement
Meanwhile, Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo expressed shock at the announcement that sabotage was suspected.
Mfeketo said: "We have had our suspicions and now I hope that this investigation will quickly get to the bottom of this matter.
"It is in the interests of the city, its residents, its economy, its visitors and Eskom, that this matter be cleared up as soon as possible."
She said the city needed to focus on an agenda of building Cape Town without the constant threat of unscheduled power interruptions.
"Meanwhile, the city has updated its ongoing contingency plans to deal with the latest electricity blackouts and has taken urgent steps to safeguard residents.
"We will also install uninterrupted power supply devices (UPS) to keep traffic lights working for more than six hours after a power failure at 200 of the most critical of the Cape Towns 1 260 intersections which is expected to cost R8m."
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
No more power to the people 26/02/2006 18:15 PM By: Lizel Steenkamp, Marlene Malan and Quinton Mtyala Print story on Email Story Falk AdSolution
Johannesburg - South Africa has reached its limit in supplying electricity.
Experts warned this week that the rest of the country could expect similar serious power failures to the ones Cape Town has experienced since November.
Industry players believed the crisis was a result of Eskom's negligence related to ineffectual and inadeqaute maintenance, a lack of long-term planning, and a loss of engineers and technicians.
Unlike in the past, when there was an excess of electricity, South Africa has reached a point where, during peak demand periods as in winter, electricity demand will exceed Eskom's ability to supply.
Experts said Eskom could not solve the electricty problem in time.
Energy expert Andrew Kenny said: "We don't have enough electricity because we don't have enough power stations."
Must prepare for regular cuts
He said international standards dictated that any country should have a reserve capacity of 15%. South Africa had only 5% capacity in reserve.
Kenny said: "People will need to prepare themseves for regular outages. Eskom says things are OK, but they are not, it will get worse."
Although technicians and engineers warned Eskom some time ago about the impending power crisis, Eskom expanded service delivery to a point where it did not have enough electricity to supply all the demands.
According to Eskom's predictions, it would not have been able to maintain peak time electricity demands by 2007 and normal demand capacity by 2010.
Eskom has struggled since November to meet demand.
Since 2000, Johannesburg residents have experienced between 700 and 800 power cuts a year.
The shortage of 800MW of power that left the Western Cape crippled on Sunday and Monday, signalled power rationing for South Africans.
The national electricity regulator admitted that the situation in Johannesburg and Cape Town had set off alarm bells, and it believed the crisis was a result of inadequate maintenance and a lack of qualified personnel.
Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu believes that, at this stage, it does not seem as if Capetonians will have to face a dark, cold winter.
He denied that Eskom had neglected to do proper maintenance.
Network upgrade by 2010
"Eskom will spend R300m this year on maintenance at Koeberg. The nature of our business demands that we plan 20 to 25 years ahead. We did that."
Sila Zimu, acting CEO of City Power in Johannesburg, said power cuts could be blamed on the fact that 70% of the city's network was between 20 and 40 years old.
The network upgrade would be completed by 2010.
Meanwhile, some suburbs of Johannesburg were again briefly without power on Saturday morning.
A City Power spokesperson was not available to explain why, but a recorded message on their number said it was a technical fault.
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
Who 'sabotaged' Koeberg? 02/03/2006 09:01 - (SA) Related Articles # Koeberg sabotage claim queried # Koeberg 'sabotage': Police mum
Damn, I'm caught between a bunch of incompetent entities, and I can't decide who is telling the truth about the so-called sabotage at Koeberg Nuclear Power Station.
Eskom's recent track record makes it very easy to believe that they'd be stupid enough to let a suspicious looking man in a turban throw bolts into their nuclear reactor on the pretext that he was blessing it. The fact that our beloved electricity suppliers are now known as Ek'sDom kinda speaks for itself.
On the other hand, Muslim terrorist organisations in South Africa are equally incompetent, seeming to specialise in blowing up hamburgers and innocent civilians, rather than actual politically viable targets.
Can it be possible that a body called the Imam Haroon Brigades could even find their way to Koeberg, let alone infiltrate it? According to the Cape Times, an e-mail the Haroonies sent to a radio station said that the group's "mission to sabotage the power station came two years after it warned authorities it would support oppressed Africans against capitalist states."
Now even by government standards, this is extremely poor delivery. I mean, what have the Haroonies been doing for the last two years then? Planning? Planning REALLY carefully?
And we're supposed to believe that, after two years of nothing, suddenly you're competent enough to sabotage a nuclear power station? Ha ha! Pull the other one, it's got Osama Bin Laden attached to it.
Ek'sDom 'blindingly useless'
But lest we forget... this IS Eskom we're talking about, the organisation that thinks that "rolling blackout" is a term used to describe your public relations department, and that "load shedding" means finding someone else to blame for your cock-ups. Anything's possible when you're this blindingly useless.
Now some of you conspiracy theorists out there are going to find the timing of the ANC's announcement of potential sabotage a little suspicious, coming as it did a day before we were due to go to the election polls.
Many of the smaller parties, like my beloved Africa Muslim Party (actual political slogan, and for once, I'm not making this up: "Say No to a Man Marrying a Man") and the Democratic Allsorts ("A Vote for Us is a Vote for a Better Europe" - okay, I made that one up), all took advantage of Eskom incompetence.
Vote for us, they said, and your future won't be as dark as it will be under the ANC. Given the high esteem in which I hold politicians, I find it hard to believe that any party will make a substantial difference to general governmental incompetence. Perhaps only the DA could really guarantee us a lighter future. Or do I mean whiter? Anyhoo, the point is, could it be true that the ANC are crying sabotage so as to win back some voters who've got lost in the dark?
Surely not. The party that gave us such great political heroes as Jacob Zuma, Peter Mokaba and Winnie Mandela would never stoop to such underhand shenanigans. Mind you, there have been reports that the ANC are suggesting that the DA were responsible for the sabotage.
According to News24, "The Cape African National Congress - although not directly blaming the Democratic Alliance - said they always had been suspicious about the interruptions, 'especially on the eve of the local-government elections. The ANC said in a statement: 'We want to point out that political parties - including the Democratic Alliance - have used the power failures for cheap political gain.'"
As attractive as I find the idea of Tony Leon pasting on a fake moustache and infiltrating Koeberg disguised as a French nuclear technician, the idea that the DA, those running Chihuahuas of capitalism, would do anything to piss off their Holy Trinity of Big Business, Constantia Housewives, and Foreign Landowners, is laughable.
No, it all comes back to Eskom. They don't need anybody to sabotage them, they're apparently highly capable of doing the job themselves. The Haroonies, the Democratic Allsorts and the Alleged National Congress are just taking advantage of the situation. Well, I hope so, anyhow. Imagine if the security at Koeberg is actually that slack, and it was sabotage. Hello, mushroom cloud.
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
March 02 2006 at 12:18PM http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_i...4a6a20060302ah
Experts have asked whether a Koeberg generator was indeed sabotaged, claiming negligence could also have crippled the electricity supply from the nuclear power station, it was reported on Thursday.
The experts pointed out that extremely strict safety measures were enforced at Koeberg - South Africa's only nuclear power station.
"Not just any Tom, Dick or Harry can get into Koeberg."
There were television cameras connected to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Switzerland in almost every room; all work was carefully monitored and stacks of forms had to be completed.
The government claimed on Tuesday that it was investigating possible sabotage as the cause of the damage to the Unit One generator from an eight centimetre long bolt in December. The generator was a large machine far removed from the nuclear activity and there was strict security in the room where it was housed, said Dr Chris Cooper of the Institute of Energy Studies at the University of Johannesburg.
He believed it would be impossible to throw in a bolt while it was generating electricity, because of the unbearable heat in its immediate vicinity.
"If someone were to try something like that, he would probably not survive."
Maintenance work might not have been done properly, or someone might simply have been careless.
"Perhaps someone put back an old, worn-out bolt and it fell out," he suggested.
Cooper said the only people who should try to find out what happened, were Eskom officials. "They will have to do a forensic investigation," he said.
Another, unnamed expert said any sabotage could only have happened while the generator was switched off for maintenance work, while a third attributed the problem to "an endless lack of maintenance". - Sapa
A senior Eskom spokesperson is mystified by government allegations that Koeberg's damaged No 1 generator was sabotaged.
"This must be a matter for police and security forces," said Tony Stott at Eskom head office in Johannesburg.
"Eskom has no details of sabotage."
On Tuesday, Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin announced that damage caused to Unit 1 in December by a loose bolt was the result of sabotage. He declined to say more and attempts to reach him later failed, as he was said to be busy in a series of meetings.
'No details of sabotage' Erwin said on Tuesday that the National Intelligence Agency and the police were investigating and arrests were imminent.
Critics are charging the revelations are an election ploy to divert attention from Eskom's failure to plan ahead or perform proper maintenance. Keith Gottschalk, a political analyst at the University of the Western Cape, said that on the day before an election, any claims made by a political party should be taken in the same spirit as the cheers of sports fans in a grandstand five minutes before a match started.
"The test will be if somebody is actually prosecuted and if there is enough evidence to ensure a conviction. The evidence so far indicates culpable negligence - you have to prove sabotage.
"Certainly whichever worker is responsible for leaving the bolt in the unit, which-ever supervisor supervised the worker, and the stocktaker responsible for the parts should be the first three people one should question."
'Culpable negligence' DA leader Tony Leon said he was shocked at what he described as the government's abuse of power in claiming sabotage was behind the power cuts.
"People know it is negligence," he said.
He likened Erwin's claims to the apartheid government blaming "unknown elements" whenever anything went wrong.
Stott and Charles Kadalie, the city's public lighting manager, agreed that the problem with Koeberg's Unit 1, whether sabotage or accident, did not contribute to the cuts. Even if both units had been fully operational, the other problems would have caused cuts, Kadalie said.
"Maybe the process to restart (the Unit 2 generator) might have been quicker had both units been operational, but we would still have had a power outage," he said.
Last week, Koeberg had to shut down when mist and veld fire ash deposited on insulators caused short circuits at the Muldersvlei distribution site.
This led to instability in the network and shut down Unit 2. It took a week to get the unit back up again, only for it to crash early yesterday when the main transmission line went down near Worcester. Stott said it was not known why the cable at Worcester had broken. It was repaired early today.
"We will only have that information once the technical team who fixed the problem have completed their investigation and written their report."
Erwin said in his dramatic announcement that suspects had been identified in the course of investigations.
"The bolt that caused the generator's destruction did not get there by accident," Erwin said.
The Minister of Minerals and Energy, Lindiwe Hendricks, said the problems at Koeberg "curiously coincide with an important process in the democratic calendar of the country" - the local government elections.
"It has become clear that the recent event cannot just be linked to inadequate transmission or generation capacity. Clearly other forces are at play here," she said.
Erwin said negotiations were being concluded with French electricity supplier EDF for parts to fix Unit 1.
Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu could not explain why anyone would sabotage Koeberg, despite reported claims of responsibility. "From the beginning we have not discounted anything, and we expected anything," he said.
Hours after Erwin's announcement, an unnamed group sent an email to 702 Talk Radio, claiming it had sabotaged the power station.
Public Enterprises spokesperson Gaynor Kast said Erwin, police and the intelligence agency were aware of the claim but could not comment.
This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Argus on March 01, 2006 __________________
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki reiterated on Thursday there was no national electricity crisis.
Instead, the required expansion of infrastructure would have a positive impact on the economy, he told the national assembly.
"There is no crisis," Mbeki said in response to a question prompted by recent intermittent power outages in the Western Cape and other parts of the country.
"The supply is there in terms of present-day demands, and there is a very large building programme to add to that supply."
Mbeki said the country had about 37 000MW of electricity available nationally, with an additional 2000MW for high peak periods.
Projected demand was about 35 000MW.
The situation was "tighter than we would have preferred", but manageable.
Approved projects would add 7 260MW in the next few years, and projects in the planning process would provide a further 10 382MW.
Asked if he would set up an independent commission of inquiry to establish the causes of the government's "failure to meet South Africa's national electricity capacity needs", the president said this would serve no useful purpose.
He also had no intention of taking steps against Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin for inferring sabotage was to blame for a failure at the Koeberg nuclear power plant - a statement the minister later denied.
Erwin had been consistent in stating the matter was under investigation, Mbeki said. An announcement would be made once a finding was forthcoming.
Information at the government's disposal was that the problems at Koeberg arose "inter alia from an incident that required investigation by the security services", the president said.
He conceded that not enough attention had been paid to the maintenance of power transmission lines, saying electricity demand had been underestimated along with projected economic growth rates.
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DAAR'S NET EEN PAD OM TE LOOP,EN DIS DIE BOERVOLK SE PAD,SAAM MET DIE SKEPPER
