South Africa will suffer from more power shortages as Eskom begins the process of nationwide power cuts from today (Monday 31st March) in an attempt to reduce electricity demand.

Eskom, the state utility provider which has been struggling to deal with the power demands of industry and the public during the power crisis, has announced that load shedding will begin for the next three months.

A statement from the firm read: "Predictable and scheduled load shedding that will typically average two to two-and-a half hours of interruption will occur every second day, excluding Sundays."

Eskom said that load-shedding was a way of ensuring that energy savings were shared equally by all customers - rather than just industry.

"Once a municipality or industrial customer that is individually switchable achieves the required ten per cent load reduction, they can apply for exclusion from the scheduled load shedding, but not emergency load shedding," the statement continued.

Erica Johnson, networks and customer service officer for Eskom, said: "If all consumers across the country adopt the same attitude to power saving as our key industrial customers, it will significantly reduce the likelihood of load shedding."

Meanwhile, Wesizwe Platinum has announced plans to begin a 350,000 oz platinum mining project.

Mike Solomon, Chief Executive Officer of the firm, said that the firm was including an electricity generation facility to help avoid delays in production if power supplies from Eskom cannot be guaranteed.

"This is a significant milestone in the short history of the project as we are now undergoing the critical transition from a pure exploration play to being a fully fledged platinum producer, over the next five years."

Source:

Scheduled power cuts to start on Monday, 28/03/08
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article.php?a_id=130082

Wesizwe triggers a 350,000 PGE oz mine, 31/03/08
http://www.miningmx.com/platinum/492218.htm

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