eskom issues urgent warning
1 February 2007

Pretoria - Eskom has issued an urgent plea for South Africans to save electricity immediately or face crippling load-shedding in the next few days, the Pretoria News reported on Thursday.

Eskom has announced that it was once again in a precarious position - it had enough power, just, but a single additional breakdown at any of its power stations, or a surge in electricity demand by South Africans, could cause blackouts before the weekend.

Andrew Etzinger, Eskom's general manager of investment strategy, said South Africa has an overall capacity to produce about 40 000MW of power.

But about 4 500MW of this is unavailable due to scheduled maintenance to various power stations, the daily said.

www.news24.com