Southern African countries have signed a deal to put in place an emergency supply of thousands of megawatts of electricity to South Africa during the hosting of 2010 World Cup.
Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are among the 12 countries that will sign an undertaking to support an emergency plan for the tournament.
Lawrence Musaba of the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) is quoted saying SAPP members will make 2 000MW to 3 000MW of “emergency power” available during the World Cup.
South Africa has of late experienced power cuts as there was little energy generation.
The Koeberg power station generates about 1 800MW.
The only SAPP members that currently have the capacity to export electricity are Zambia, Mozambique and the DRC. Botswana, Swaziland and Namibia all import power from, inter alia, South Africa.
On Tuesday this week the World Bank announced a new investment of $570m into the SAPP after years of insufficient investment in the region.
This follows promises on Monday for some $1.3bn for maintenance and renovation of infrastructure in eight countries along the corridor stretching from South Africa in the south to Kenya on the horn of Africa.
According to Musaba, more than $100bn is required to increase power-generation capacities in the 12 member states to 100 000MW – apart from the investments that Eskom has already announced in South Africa.
Eskom generates about 36 000MW of the 46 500MW available in the region
this year.
