Luphert Chilwane
3 December 2008
Johannesburg — DEPUTY President Baleka Mbete accepted a pledge yesterday by Business Unity SA (Busa) to increase energy efficiency in support of meeting national energy challenges.
"The reason for this summer energy efficiency campaign was to make sure that next year we do not experience power shortages as we did this year," Mbete said at the launch of an energy-saving campaign at the Presidential Guest House in Pretoria.
"All of us now realise that we must act together to reduce our inefficient use of energy, which is indeed a lifeblood for our society and our economy."
She said the government had addressed energy-savings measures this year through a range of measures including retrofitting over 4000 national government buildings. This had saved R56m in energy costs.
Mbete said the government had provided R300m worth of energy-efficient light bulbs for poor households, while in industry and mining the government was implementing a suite of "leadership by demonstration" programmes and introducing tax incentives for investment in energyefficient technologies.
"We are engaging directly with organised business through Busa to decide how to assess whether a company is using electricity efficiently," she said.
Busa president Brian Molefe said efficient energy use was a critical part of a strategy for addressing national energy challenges.
Failure to use energy efficiently would impede the growth of the economy, making it difficult to meet the urgent challenges of employment creation and poverty eradication.
The load shedding in January, when the electricity grid was under severe pressure, underscored the importance of energy security to support economic growth, Molefe said.
"The strong correlation between energy prices and economic growth means that we must balance energy supply and demand and diversify our energy sources to minimise threats to the security of supply," he said.
While Eskom's coal stocks have risen to a month's supply compared with a week's supply when the power crisis was at its peak, the utility's spare capacity -- or reserve margin -- is still well below the targeted 15%.
A unit at Eskom's Koeberg nuclear power station was shut down last month for repairs, limiting power supply even further.
The utility has embarked on a R343bn power investment programme over the next five years, but no new supply is expected to come on stream before 2012.
Until then, Eskom and the government have launched numerous energy-saving programmes and raised power tariffs, encouraging households -- which amount to more than a third of all electricity usage -- and industry to save where they can.
With Reuters
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