SA: French experts give Eskom a hand
Luyanda Makapela
11 March 2008
The three electricity experts from Electricit?de France (EDF)
arrived in South Africa last week and will help to define the country’s
most pressing needs in terms of power generation, capacity and
maintenance.
The focus of their fact-finding mission is the de-mothballing
of coal power plants, as well as assessing and providing the technical
skills needed, the French embassy’s Caroline Jansen said in a
statement.
Following the results of their appraisal, more experts from
Electricit?de France will visit South Africa to assist their South
African counterparts.
This follows French President Nicolas Sarkozy state visit to
South Africa last month, during which he announced that he would be
sending three engineers to work closely with the state utility in
addressing the country’s electricity challenges.
French company Alstom has also sent four engineers to South
Africa to investigate the maintenance of boilers and turbines at
country’s power plants. Alstom recently signed a R13-billion deal with
Eskom to provide steam turbines for the construction of new coal power
plants.
Twenty-five technicians from the nuclear power company Areva
are also in the country, working with Eskom to increase the generation
capacity of the Koeberg nuclear reactor.
Major new projects face delays
Eskom announced last week that major new construction projects in the country will be halted for the next four to six months.
However, the utility said the construction of the Gautrain and
those projects surrounding preparations for the 2010 Fifa World Cup
will not be affected because they had already been approved by Eskom
before the power shortage crisis hit the country.
Eskom spokesperson Sipho Neke has said that only projects such
as new townhouse developments, petrol stations and factories, which
needed to obtain electricity certificates from Eskom in advance, would
be delayed by up to six months.
The government has committed itself to working with mining and other
industries to ensure that industry challenges that emerged from the
electricity emergency were addressed without any job losses, said
government spokesperson Themba Maseko.
Maseko was speaking about large electricity consumers having to
cut their usage by 10%, putting strain on businesses such as mining
companies.
Maseko also said that Cabinet had resolved that concrete steps
should be taken by Eskom and municipalities to accelerate the
maintenance of the electricity infrastructure to secure the
distribution and transmission side of the electricity supply chain.
However, the main message is that we must continue to save
energy, and not become complacent because no extensive load shedding
took place over the past few weeks, Maseko said.
Source: BuaNews
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