S.Africa to construct new power transmission lines in northern province

Johannesburg, Feb 4 (IANS) Amid an ongoing power crisis, South Africa’s Department of Public Works and Infrastructure said it has started the process to construct electricity transmission lines in Limpopo province.

“The current transmission lines in Limpopo are inadequate and unable to meet the electricity demands of the people in the region. Eskom (South Africa’s state power utility), therefore, needs to strengthen its electricity network by upgrading an existing substation to increase the capacity of the power transmission system,” the Department said in a statement.

“The energy crisis requires us all to work together for the greater good such as ensuring the provision of the necessary infrastructure to enhance electricity supply,” Xinhua news agency quoted the Department as saying.

South Africa is currently facing a severe electricity crisis.

South Africans have endured power cuts for years but 2022 was the worst on record with 205 days of rolling blackouts, as aging coal-fired power plants broke down and state-owned power utility Eskom struggled to find the money to buy diesel for emergency generators.

So far this year, there have been outages every day.

The situation worsened again last month when Eskom said it would implement more cuts because of breakdowns at 11 coal-fired generating units.

Loadshedding was escalated to level 6, which entails removing 6,000 megawatts (MW) worth of power from the grid in order to rebalance demand and supply. This can result in outages lasting 4.5 hours at a time and totaling 12 hours a day for households and businesses.

At peak times, demand in South Africa averages between 28,000 MW and 34,000 MW.

–IANS

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