Article Search

 Cape city council admits: We blew it

    February 24 2006 at 06:51AM

By Anél Powell

"We were not quite ready for this". After six days of debilitating and extensive power disruptions, which big business says have cost at least R500-million so far, the city council has finally taken responsibility for the electricity crisis.

Charles Kadalie, the council's manager for public lights, said: "What people don't realise is that we were planning for the refuelling (of Koeberg's Unit 2 nuclear generator) which will still happen (later this year), but were not quite ready for this."

Kadalie said that despite the assurance from Eskom's chief executive Thulani Gcabashe that full power could be restored on Friday after Koeberg's Unit 2 nuclear generator was re-activated on Friday, there were "no guarantees".


He said Gcabashe had warned that the synchronisation of the reactor with the national grid was a "volatile" process and that it could "still pick up glitches" that would delay the "bringing of stability to this troubled city".

Of Eskom's promise to have power restored by the weekend, Kadalie said: "We live in hope".

He admitted too that while there were some discrepancies with the council's load shedding schedule and the actual timing and duration of the blackouts, "at least there is a list" for the public to consult.

The council's director of electricity, Leslie Rencontre, said the likelihood of Koeberg losing both generators, as happened on Sunday when Unit 2 tripped, was something that had not even been considered in normal risk assessments by the city.

With repairs to Unit 1, which has been out since it was damaged by a loose bolt in December, still under way, Rencontre said: "We have to start planning for the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario actually happened this week, long before we expected Unit 2 to go down."

Unit 2 is scheduled to be shut off later this year for refuelling.

"We will see very much the same thing then," said Rencontre, when asked what would happen if Unit 1 were not repaired. "But at least we have learnt a lot from this experience."

However, some may argue that this has been too costly a lesson. The SA Chamber of Businesses (Sacob) estimated the loss at about R500 million, Sapa reported yesterday.

Sacob president, Deidre Penfold, said the figure was most likely to increase as small, medium and micro enterprises determined their figures.

Fanie Bekker, chief executive of the Afrikaanse Sakekamer for the Western Cape, said the province had lost "millions of rands" since Sunday.

Bekker said the tourism industry was particularly hard hit by the cuts.

"I know of tourists who are here, but want to go back home because there is no electricity.

"It is very bad that the city said to Eskom it would regulate the distribution of electricity to the metropole without warning people (of load shedding)."

Bekker said while Premier Ebrahim Rasool's call for economic growth was laudable, there had to be a concomitant growth in the capacity to meet energy demands.

"Somebody has to take responsibility now."

Albert Schuitmaker, executive director of the Cape Chamber of Commerce, said the loss of business was "well in the hundreds of millions of rands".

He said he had several reports from companies which had lost a R100 million in revenue.

"And the situation is still going on."

Schuitmaker said that companies had indicated that they were looking at taking legal action to claim compensation.

Bekker said the Sakekamer would meet Rasool in 10 days to assess the situation. "But I don't think this is the end of the story."

Said Kadalie: "It has cost the city a hell of a lot of money to keep the network running."

The cost of running the city's back-up gas-powered turbine generators at Roggebaai was more than four times the amount it cost Eskom to generate power.

But Kadalie and Rencontre said ratepayers would not have to pay more for electricity to cover these costs.

"We can't just push up the rates," Kadalie said, adding that Eskom should be held responsible for the power crisis.

Rencontre said there was little the council could do to prevent a recurrence until the gas-driven power station at Atlantis was opened at the end of the year.

Once it was refurbished, the Athlone power station would provide 35 megawatts, while the city had a shortfall of 500MW.

"We can't do better to get more energy. All we can hope for is that the two units are not out at the same time."

Power cuts may have also have affected sewage removal.

Derek Bock, chief operations officer for the Central City Improvement District, said the CCID had warned the city eight months ago that the sewage pumps were inadequate and contingency plans for such emergencies as the power cuts were unsatisfactory.

Bock and a senior councillor said sewage was being pumped into the sea at Hout Bay, Diep River and Muizenberg, although the city's director of water, Sipho Mosai, could not be reached to confirm this.

But Kadalie said the council was trying to ensure that power was not cut to stations supplying electricity to sewage pumps.

    • This article was originally published on page 1 of Cape Times on February 24, 2006
Email StoryPrint Story