Minister in the Presidency Trevor Manuel shouldered the blame, on behalf of President Jacob Zuma's government, for not convening the structures that were set up to respond to the power crisis, following the electricity blackouts of early 2008.

Manuel was speaking following what was only the first gathering of the multi-stakeholder Electricity Advisory Council since Zuma's new government was assembled in May. The council met previously in April.

Engineering News Online reported in November that the National Electricity Response Team (Nert) had not been meeting, and that the project office set up in December 2008 to coordinate the various response programmes was facing serious cash flow constraints, having not been paid since March.

The Nert structures comprise officials from various government departments, led by the Department of Energy (DoE), representatives from power utility Eskom and a host of private-sector organisations and individuals. It is also meant to have a direct link to Cabinet through the Nert steering committee.

"I should be prepared to take the blame for government . . . we were hammered [in this meeting] for not having met more frequently," Manuel said, acknowledging that it was government's responsibility to convene the meetings.

The breakdown had also contributed to what Manuel described as the current "false sense of security" about the state of electricity supply in South Africa.

"Life is actually not as easy as you pretend," he warned, adding that, as the economy emerged from recession, electricity demand growth would "put the current supply under pressure".

This reality was confirmed recently by Eskom's chief officer for networks and customer service, Erica Johnson, who said that, while there was no short-term threat to security of supply, the system would be vulnerable from 2011 through to 2012, when the first of Medupi's six 790-MW units was scheduled for synchronisation to the grid.

"Therefore, there is no alternative but to have an intensive focus on demand management," Johnson averred.

She explained that this programme would have two components: a power conservation programme, which was designed to reduced demand from large customers by between 8% and 15%; and demand-side management (DSM) measures at the commercial and residential level, with a strong focus on solar water heating.

The business, labour and community representatives who attended Tuesday's council meeting, which took place at the Union Buildings, endorsed the need for more frequent meetings, as well as the need to scale up the DSM.

Business Unity South Africa's deputy CEO Raymond Parsons said that a renewed commitment to Nert and its programmes was important to dealing with the power crisis, while the Congress of South African Trade Union's Jan Mahlangu revealed that a year-planner would be published by late December, outlining the meeting schedule for, and programmes of, the council.

Parsons also said that the agreement on the need for a longer-term focus, which had been debated at the meeting, would enable the social partners to have more coherent plans with regard to the DSM and the future electricity mix.

The meeting agreed, for instance, that there was an urgent need to accelerate the National Solar Water Heating Programme, which planned to oversee the installation of one-million solar geysers by 2014, and to introduce incentives for voluntary rationing wherever feasible.

The social partners also renewed their call for South Africans to reduce electricity use by at least 10%, which they said would increase the reserve margin to above 13%.