Eskom in domestic priority vow
Utility explains Africa power deals as it denies any secret agreement with Zimbabwe
POWER utility Eskom issued an assurance yesterday that its electricity agreements with other African countries would not affect its primary commitment to the domestic market.
It also denied that it was involved with any undercover deal with Zimbabwe.
Eskom was commenting on reports in Zimbabwe that the utility had entered into a secret agreement to sell 300MW of electricity to its neighbour.
The media reports also quoted Zimbabwe’s Energy and Power Development Ministry permanent secretary Partson Mbiriri as saying the deal had to be kept under wraps “for security reasons”.
Eskom confirmed the sale of power to Zimbabwe‚ but said “there is no secrecy”.
It was part of a power supply agreement with the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa).
This deal was part of an arrangement among southern African utilities to sell surplus electricity to each other.
Of the deals, Eskom said: “We are aware that our responsibilities to supply our neighbouring countries may create an apparent conflict when the domestic supply-demand bal- ance is constrained.”
It said that “to reduce the impact of exports‚ we have ensured that power supply agreements with SAPP trading partners are sufficiently flexible” to allow for controls during emergency situations in South Africa.
Eskom also used the opportunity of the secrecy denial to explain its agreements.
These include Eskom and Zesa being part of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP).
Through this, utilities in the power pool sold surplus electricity to each other depending on the need.
“South Africa‚ through Eskom‚ has been involved in the electricity sector in various countries in Africa for a long time and has utilised different forms of engagements,” it said.
“This has been done mainly through bilateral trading ar- rangements‚ using instruments such as power purchase and power sales agreements.
“Eskom is also committed to ongoing participation in the Southern African Development Community [SADC] region through SAPP as an institution.
“SAPP is made up of SA‚ Botswana‚ Lesotho‚ Mozambique‚ Namibia‚ Swaziland‚ Zambia and Zimbabwe‚ connected through an integrated grid‚” Eskom said.
The utility went into detail about its involvement in various power agreements in the rest of Africa.
“Participation in East and West Africa [Uganda and Mali respectively] has been undertaken through long-term operating and maintenance concession agreements.”
These involved the De Cahora Bassa hydroelectric scheme in Mozambique‚ as well as a transmission arrangement that connected Zimbabwe‚ Botswana and South Africa.
In turn, this opened up the flow of electricity as far as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Namibia, Eskom said.
Its strategy also involved creating the Southern African Energy Unit‚ through which South Africa imported electricity from Lesotho‚ Mozambique and Namibia‚ and sold electricity to Botswana‚ Lesotho‚ Mozambique‚ Namibia‚ Swaziland‚ Zambia and Zimbabwe.