BuaNews (Tshwane)
Bathandwa Mbola
7 November 2008
Pretoria — South Africans used 1.2 percent less electricity in September 2008 as compared to the same month last year.
The latest figures released indicate that the consumption of electricity in September 2008 decreased by 1.2 percent compared to September 2007.
According to the figures released by Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) on Thursday, the estimated electricity consumed for the third quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of last year also decreased by 1.2 percent (-752 Gigawatt-hours).
For this reason, government had launched the National Electricity Management Plan and further called on all citizens, businesses and other organisations to come together and work towards finding solutions to the current power crisis. Large electricity consumers, such as businesses, have agreed to decrease their consumption by 10 percent.
The rapid economic growth has led to a higher demand for electricity than there is supply. With regards to electricity distributed to the provinces, the report indicates that it decreased by 1.7 percent for the first nine months of 2008 compared with the same period last year.
In spite of the general decreasing trend, increases were reported for Limpopo (3.1 percent) and Mpumalanga (1.4 percent).
Decreases, however, were reported for Western Cape, North West, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and Northern Cape.
With regards to international trade in electricity, the report indicates that the first nine months of 2008 showed annual decreases for electricity imported from outside South Africa (-8.4 percent) and electricity exported to neighbouring countries (-2.8 percent)
According to Stats SA, the refurbishment at the Eskom Apollo converter station which receives the imports from the Cahora Bassa scheme in Mozambique has been completed, resulting in an increase in the level of imports in recent months.
Apart from the interconnector between Zambia and Zimbabwe being closed, the report indicates that contracted purchases from the Democratic Republic of Congo are still not being received due to their generation plant being out of service for refurbishment.
"Eskom expects that these purchases will be resumed in December 2008. Sales to neighbouring states continue to be reduced in line with the reduction required of all customers."
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