South Africa's power utility, Eskom has called on South Africans and business entities to make at least a 10 percent saving on electricity, as the country faced possible power cuts.

The government's news agency, Bua News reported that Public Enterprises Minister, Malusi Gigaba said, "Given the tightness of the system we understand that Eskom cannot reach energy savings working alone, it must include others".

Gigaba said he appreciated the role big companies play in saving electricity but that "the situation we're in requires that we change the way we use energy".

Eskom Chief Executive Officer, Brian Dames said the 10 percent savings across all the parastatal's customers was envisaged in the Energy Conservation Scheme developed by Eskom, customers and government in 2009.

"We don't want to go back to load shedding," Dames said, at the comdavid ross, democratic alliance, pany's first quarterly briefing this year.

Eskom said on Friday in its bi-weekly capacity update service "that it has moved to twice a week updates instead of the previous quarterly updates in line with its commitment to regular and transparent communication on the power system, which is expected to be constrained for at least the next two years".

Most of South Africa's power stations have reached their mid life and require more maintenance.

We don't want to go back to load shedding

In January, Eskom warned of a "very high" risk of rolling blackouts around the country, but was doing everything it could to avert it.

No where to turn

The Democratic Alliance's David Ross said, "The impending electricity blackouts are a dark and bitter pill for South Africans to swallow. Eskom supplies a large portion of Africa's electricity north of our borders - to the value of R4.1 billion in 2011 - while the poor suffer without electricity at home".

"The parastatal has a publicly stipulated mandate to ensure 'security of supply for South Africa' and he questions whether Eskom is committed to its local obligations. Ross says the DA wants that "Eskom puts South Africa first".

The power utility's update also stated that "this and next year Eskom does not have the spare capacity to be able to have a large generating unit fail, as the first unit of the new Medupi power station will only come on line in 2013".

Gigaba added, "Electricity is an important input that can help growth or impede it".

South Africa's electricity utility is one of the top 10 utilities in the world by generation capacity. It generates approximately 95 percent of electricity used in South Africa and approximately 45 percent of electricity used in Africa.

South Africa has hinted that if it failed to provide adequate power it would import from its neighbours. However, South Africa already exports power to countries such as Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, meaning Eskom is short of countries in the region from where it can import power.