Particularly affected are people living in Windhoek.

Residents of various suburbs such as Katutura, Academia, Olympia and Khomasdal had to go without electricity for hours on Monday night when the municipality started its load-shedding exercise.

The same was expected to happen around the city last night.

In an interview with The Namibian, City of Windhoek spokesperson Elizabeth Sibindi said because of the problems that NamPower faces, the municipality had to deal with the situation in a way that would be satisfactory to all consumers.

"Our supplier, NamPower, is facing power supply problems and as a result, the City (municipality of Windhoek) has to manage the power capacity that we have based on demand," said Sibindi.

She said only the city centre and residential areas that are home to emergency service facilities like clinics and hospitals would be exempted from load-shedding.

Sibindi said the load-shedding would continue as long as the current situation with NamPower continued.

The Municipality would try to leave no area without power for more than an hour at a time, Sibindi said, but "complications" could mean prolonged power outages.

Sibindi could not say how long the load-shedding would continue.

Load-shedding entails reducing the supply of electricity to selected areas at given times.

NamPower's Corporate Communications Officer, Chris Ndivanga, did not have much to say yesterday, save to reiterate that recent developments in the region had led to a critical power supply situation in the country which could affect the nation and cross-border customers.

South African power giant Eskom earlier notified NamPower that rising domestic demand had made it increasingly difficult to continue supplying electricity to Namibia.

Namibia imports more than half of its electricity.

Efforts to obtain comment from Eskom hit a brick wall.

After more than a week, the South African company's spokesperson, Fani Zulu, has still not responded to questions on the power situation sent to him by The Namibian.

As an interim measure, NamPower has activated the Paratus power station at Walvis Bay and Van Eck power station in Windhoek.

The country's largest local power supplier is the Ruacana hydroelectric power station, which produces 240 megawatts.

Ruacana was operating below full capacity earlier this month due to a fault in one of its generators.

The generator has in the meantime been repaired.

Paratus, which is diesel powered, generates 24 megawatts, while coal-powered Van Eck generates 120 megawatts.

Last year, Namibia's maximum demand for power went up to 392 megawatts in winter.

The total power generated by Ruacana, Paratus and Van Eck only adds up to 384 megawatts.

NamPower has also said it was cheaper to import power than to run Paratus and Van Eck.

NamPower is investigating alternatives, including importing power from Zimbabwe, Zambia and Cahora Basa in Mozambique.

Last month, the Electricity Control Board announced a six per cent hike in tariffs of bulk electricity, which will be implemented on July 1.

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