18 January 2007
Minister of Public Enterprises, Alec Erwin, was notified about the tripped
turbine at the Koeberg Power Station when it occurred in the early hours of
this morning.
The Minister is satisfied that a competent project team has been assembled
to establish the cause of the event and he receives regular up-to-the-minute
reports on the status of the situation. While some parts of the country are
expected to experience power outages due to the load-shedding exercise, the
Minister is confident that South Africa as a whole will not be plunged into
darkness.
Minister Erwin would like to apologise to all those affected by the outages
and would also like to reassure everyone that the team are doing everything
they can to normalise the situation as soon as possible.
In the meantime, the Minister would like to appeal to everyone to exercise
extra care in our energy use by switching off non-essential electrical
equipment such as geysers, air-conditioning and swimming pool pumps.
For further information, please contact:
Ms Gaynor Kast
Ministerial Spokesperson
Cell: 083 271 4350
Issued by: Department of Public Enterprises
18 January 2007
