By Khulu Phasiwe

According to a report in Business Day there was a strong possibility that the entire southern African region would experience rolling power outages from next year, the eighth annual Pan African Power Conference was told on Wednesday 5 April.

The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) co-ordination centre manager Lawrence Musaba said: “With no investment in generation capacity, it is expected that in 2007 the SAPP will start to run out of generation surplus.”

The 12-member SAPP, of which Eskom is a key member, said that although its long-term plan was to build new power stations, the immediate solution was to teach the 230-million people in the region to use electricity sparingly.

Eskom, which has been running the energy efficiency campaign for several years in SA, said some of the electricity-saving tips included switching off appliances when not in use, installing florescent bulbs, using oil heaters and installing geyser blankets.

“It is important to raise the public’s awareness that the more energy we use, the more power needs to be generated. The result is that more power stations need to be built, which will inevitably result in the consumer having to bear the cost through higher tariffs,” Matlala is quoted as saying.

• Read the full story, posted on businessday.co.za.