‘Cape power cuts won’t affect Namibia’

NAMIBIA is not in any immediate threat of power failures, which have wreaked havoc in the Western Cape over the past two weeks.

Power utility NamPower said yesterday that despite low output from the Ruacana Hydropower Station, it was managing to meet local demand with its own sources and inputs from other SADC countries. NamPower Managing Director Leake Hangala told The Namibian yesterday that Namibia was currently receiving very little power from South Africa during the crisis at the Koeberg nuclear power plant in Cape Town.Hangala said should Namibia be unable to generate enough power to meet local demand, it would inform the public through the media well ahead of time.He labelled as untrue reports that Namibia would soon face regular power outages during the night in the wake of the Koeberg situation.”No, that is not true at all.We are able to run and meet the demand with our own generation,” Hangala said.”We will inform the public and the press.We won’t just cut the power like that.”Hangala said the power outage that affected the whole of Namibia during the early hours of Tuesday morning was caused by a breakdown on a transmission line from the Western Cape.NamPower said that at the time Ruacana was not running and Windhoek’s Van Eck coal-fired power station was also not running at full capacity.Over the years, Namibia has been very reliant on power imports from South Africa, which prove cheaper than operating its coal and diesel power stations.But the breakdown of one of two units at Koeberg at the end of last year has seen the South African power utility scrambling to meet the demand.The Western Cape has been thrust into a crisis which has cost the economy billions of rand during the past two weeks, as huge parts of Cape Town are without power for several hours during the day.The fear that the situation could worsen as winter approaches is very real.Eskom is currently unable to say with certainty whether Koeberg Unit One will be repaired by the time Unit Two needs to undergo maintenance next month – a process that could take about four months.Koeberg’s two nuclear reactors provide around 900 megawatts of power.This week, South African media were filled with reports that “sabotage” was at play in the breakdown at Koeberg in the run-up to local authority polls which kicked off on Wednesday.NamPower says it supplies 75 per cent of Namibia’s power needs from its own sources.At present NamPower imports only around 90 megawatts of power a day from South Africa.Hangala said since the power crisis hit South Africa, NamPower has been topping up its local supplies with imports from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique.These imports travel via South Africa.Hangala said Namibia would ideally like to have a direct transmission line from Zambia and Zimbabwe.The NamPower head said his company would focus on an aggressive information campaign in the coming weeks to keep its customers and consumers abreast of developments in the industry.At peak times Namibia has a power of demand of 500 megawatts a day – a fifth of this is required by the Skorpion Zinc Mine alone.”We are talking every day with Eskom,” said Hangala.Hangala said NamPower was concerned that it was not able to up supply from Ruacana because of low water flows.”We are extremely worried about the water flow at Ruacana.The water flow is very, very bad for this time of year,” said Hangala.Water flow measured at the site indicates an inflow of only 113 cubic metres per second, which at this time of year is usually between 400 and 500 cubic metres per second.The Ruacana plant requires water flow of around 220 cubic metres per second to run all its turbines.NamPower is currently incurring huge expenses running the coal-fired Van Eck Power Station in Windhoek and the diesel generators at the Paratus Power Station at Walvis Bay to meet Namibia’s electricity demand.On Wednesday, NamPower met with its bulk customers to discuss the energy situation and to appeal to municipalities to encourage customers to manage their electricity better by switching off lights and other appliances when not in use.”We are running an information campaign to ask everybody to co-operate,” said Hangala.NamPower Managing Director Leake Hangala told The Namibian yesterday that Namibia was currently receiving very little power from South Africa during the crisis at the Koeberg nuclear power plant in Cape Town.Hangala said should Namibia be unable to generate enough power to meet local demand, it would inform the public through the media well ahead of time.He labelled as untrue reports that Namibia would soon face regular power outages during the night in the wake of the Koeberg situation.”No, that is not true at all.We are able to run and meet the demand with our own generation,” Hangala said.”We will inform the public and the press.We won’t just cut the power like that.”Hangala said the power outage that affected the whole of Namibia during the early hours of Tuesday morning was caused by a breakdown on a transmission line from the Western Cape.NamPower said that at the time Ruacana was not running and Windhoek’s Van Eck coal-fired power station was also not running at full capacity.Over the years, Namibia has been very reliant on power imports from South Africa, which prove cheaper than operating its coal and diesel power stations.But the breakdown of one of two units at Koeberg at the end of last year has seen the South African power utility scrambling to meet the demand.The Western Cape has been thrust into a crisis which has cost the economy billions of rand during the past two weeks, as huge parts of Cape Town are without power for several hours during the day.The fear that the situation could worsen as winter approaches is very real.Eskom is currently unable to say with certainty whether Koeberg Unit One will be repaired by the time Unit Two needs to undergo maintenance next month – a process that could take about four months.Koeberg’s two nuclear reactors provide around 900 megawatts of power.This week, South African media were filled with reports that “sabotage” was at play in the breakdown at Koeberg in the run-up to local authority polls which kicked off on Wednesday.NamPower says it supplies 75 per cent of Namibia’s power needs from its own sources.At present NamPower imports only around 90 megawatts of power a day from South Africa.Hangala said since the power crisis hit South Africa, NamPower has been topping up its local supplies with imports from Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique.These imports travel via South Africa.Hangala said Namibia would ideally like to have a direct transmission line from Zambia and Zimbabwe.The NamPower head said his company would focus on an aggressive information campaign in the coming weeks to keep its customers and consumers abreast of developments in the industry.At peak times Namibia has a power of demand of 500 megawatts a day – a fifth of this is required by the Skorpion Zinc Mine alone.”We are talking every day with Eskom,” said Hangala.Hangala said NamPower was concerned that it was not able to up supply from Ruacana because of low water flows.”We are extremely worried about the water flow at Ruacana.The water flow is very, very bad for this time of year,” said Hangala.Water flow measured at the site indicates an inflow of only 113 cubic metres per second, which at this time of year is usually between 400 and 500 cubic metres per second.The Ruacana plant requires water flow of around 220 cubic metres per second to run all its turbines.NamPower is currently incurring huge expenses running the coal-fired Van Eck Power Station in Windhoek and the diesel generators at the Paratus Power Station at Walvis Bay to meet Namibia’s electricity demand.On Wednesday, NamPower met with its bulk customers to discuss the energy situation and to appeal to municipalities to encourage customers to manage their electricity better by switching off lights and other appliances when not in use.”We are running an information campaign to ask everybody to co-operate,” said Hangala.