South Africa's power supply is still vulnerable and the price of electricity looks set to rise, according to the Government.

Speaking before the energy summit on Friday, Alec Erwin, the Public Enterprises Minister, said that a smooth tariff rise would be favoured.

He said it was clear that big price rises would not be tolerated; speaking to Bloomberg he said: "There is an agreement that we should redesign the whole application process to smooth the increases out over a period of time."

Eskom had been given the power to buy electricity from the public in a bid to raise up to 3,000MW of additional power but it now seems certain that prices will also increase.

The firm is also refusing to rule out the possibility of winter load shedding periods.

Andrew Etzinger, Demand-side Manager for Eskom said it was in a better position than it had been in January but revealed that there was still a risk of power supplies falling short.

Speaking to Engineering News, Mr Etzinger said that coal supplies were not stockpiled for more than 16 days.

"No station is below 12 days, which is better than the situation in January, where certain of our stations were at around three or four days," he explained.

But the power crisis has already left investors scared and crippled the production of platinum mines across the country.

Mines may have to accept lower electricity supplies to be a thing of the future after Mr Etzinger told Reuters: "We simply can't accommodate large smelters and the like ... to the degree we have in the past."



Source:

Winter power cuts unlikely, but Eskom warns risk remains, 14/05/08
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=133323

Eskom reveals its pricing hand in tender for near-term capacity, 14/05/08
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=133327

Erwin hints to ‘smoothed' power-tariff compromise, 14/05/08
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=133347

Reuters.