Rolling Blackouts In Cape Town As SA Energy Crunch Intensifies - Reuters

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CAPE TOWN - Cape Town's lights may be back on after a week of blackouts, dark nights and traffic chaos, but South Africa now faces a desperate race to avert a critical energy crisis over the next two years, analysts said on Monday.

Energy experts say years of inaction have allowed the power grid in Africa's biggest economy to stagnate despite demand spurred by strengthening economic growth, leaving infrastructure strained sometimes beyond capacity. "It's definitely a severe problem, some companies could go out of business, businesses that rely on electricity to survive," University of Cape Town electrical engineering professor Trevor Gaunt told Reuters.

Last week technical problems at Koeberg, the continent's only nuclear-fired facility, exposed holes in the system and subjected Cape Town to eight days of rolling blackouts.

Roads in parts of the city, the country's tourism hub, were gridlocked, shops shut their doors and harvested fruits lay rotting in stiffling heat, costing the region hundreds of millions of rands. While the power was up on Monday, South Africa's second biggest city may now face months of power cuts while technicians work to bring Koeberg back to full power ahead of the start of the southern hemisphere winter, analysts say.

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