By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom has announced that Stage 5 load shedding will be implemented from 14:00 on Monday.
This was “due to further delays in returning generating units to service”, as well as “the further failure of 5 generating units” on Monday.
Stage 5 load shedding will be implemented from 14:00 on Monday until 05:00 on Tuesday. Thereafter, Stage 4 load shedding will be implemented until further notice.
Eskom said it would publish another update should any significant changes occur.
The sudden change in schedule comes a day after electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa criticised the lack of stability coming out of the power utility, saying that businesses were struggling to plan ahead.
He said the government and Eskom would work to reduce the uncertainty.
“I think it’s particularly unhelpful when Eskom has to go out from time to time with the announcement of the intensity of load shedding.
“I think there was one day where we shifted the intensity of load shedding about three times in a space of about six hours. I think that undermines the credibility of our efforts, but also the ability of industries and households to be able to plan because they would have expected lower stages of load shedding,” he said during a media briefing on Sunday.
He said that as extra megawatts are added to the grid, some of these problematic units will be taken out for service to ensure they are more reliable.
“This will give us an opportunity that when we make a promise of a Stage ‘X’ you won’t find that much later we have to make amendments to that announcement, which undermine the statements Eskom releases from time to time.”
Ramokgopa said additional interventions are needed to ensure the state-owned entity can turn that around.
“The levels of load shedding are not going down to where we want it to be. Even with this elevated the peak demand in my view when I was sharing with the team is that we should not be in way upwards of Stage 3 but it’s something that requires our collective attention.
“I do promise that we’re going to address this with the urgency that the state is required.
For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.
Smartphone users can also download the app EskomSePush to receive push notifications when load shedding is implemented, as well as the times the area you are in will be off.
Meanwhile Eskom’s strategy to lower the intensity of load shedding with load curtailment is having a disastrous impact on the economy.
Before winter, South Africa had often “technically” hit stages 7 and 8, but Eskom would implement load curtailment on South Africa’s major power consumers to prevent this.
This meant that the public was, at most, subjected to stage 6 load shedding.
Load curtailment sees Eskom directly ask large power users to reduce their power consumption, and, like load shedding, it is done in stages:
- Stage 1 and stage 2: companies are required to reduce 10% of their power consumption
- Stage 3: companies are required to reduce 15% of their power consumption
- Stage 4: companies are required to reduce 20% of their power consumption
The members of the Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG), including Anglo American, Sibanye Stillwater, Thungela and over 20 other corporations, use more than 40% of the nation’s power and are subject to load shedding.
Despite load curtailment benefitting the public in the short term, it can have disastrous effects on the economy.
Members of the EIUG account for approximately 22% of South Africa’s GDP, and any alterations to their operations can seriously impact productivity.