The Southern African Power Pool (SAPP), comprising eleven of South Africa's neighbouring countries, have pledged to supply electricity to South Africa to prevent power cuts during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Eskom, South Africa's power utility, said in a statement on Tuesday that SAPP has committed support in areas of generation, transmission, customer contributions and demand side management.

"This initiative is part of Eskom's plans to ensure the reliability of electricity supply for the 2009 Confederations Cup and the 2010 Fifa World Cup," Eskom said.

South Africa was hit by severe power outages early last year, which led to the country cutting back on its power exports to neighbouring countries and cast doubt over the country's ability to hold the global event.

Eskom said the pledge was the culmination of several months of planning and discussions aimed at ensuring that the World Cup is seen as a triumph for the entire African continent.

"This initiative confirms that the 2010 FIFA World Cup is truly and indeed an African event," said Eskom Project 2010 unit managing director Johnny Dladla.

Eskom said the pledge of solidarity among the southern African countries would be backed by commercial agreements that would be negotiated and signed separately between SAPP members and Eskom.

It said these agreements would include initiatives that would ensure a targeted amount of power supplied.

Some key parts of the agreement include ensuring adequate transmission capacity for the transfer of power to South Africa, preventative pre-event maintenance and clean servitudes, maximising plant production, energy efficiency initiatives and load management during the events.

SAPP members have also agreed to engage in demand-side initiatives where manufacturers will be encouraged to slow production during the evening peak and increase production during the off peak periods.

Some may also elect to take their plants off the grid for planned maintenance during game times, thus reducing pressure on the interconnected SAPP system.

The surplus power intervention would ensure that any surplus power capacity that SAPP members may have would be made available to Eskom as a contribution towards the 2009 and 2010 events.

SAPP members include electricity producers in Mozambique, Botswana, Angola and Namibia as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia.

Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Lesotho are also members.

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