French experts give Eskom a hand
11 March 2008Seven French electricity experts are in South Africa to help state company Eskom tackle the electricity shortage the country has been facing since late last year.
The three electricity experts from Electricité 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 Electricité de France will visit South Africa to assist their South African counterparts."
This follows French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 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
