By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
South Africans can expect to endure Stage 6 load shedding continuously until struggling power utility Eskom says otherwise, starting from 16:00 on Wednesday afternoon.
Eskom said the higher stage of the deliberate power cuts is necessary due to the severe capacity constraints.
“Eskom will continue to manage the limited emergency generation reserves to supplement generation capacity. Eskom will publish a further update as soon as there are any significant changes,” it said.
Eleven generators amounting to 5,084MW of capacity suffered breakdowns since Tuesday morning, further reducing available capacity and necessitating the increase in load shedding stages, it said.
These were a unit each at the Camden, Duvha, Grootvlei, Hendrina, Kendal, and two units each at Kriel, Majuba and Matla power stations.
A unit each at Camden, Duvha, Hendrina, Kriel, Matimba and Matla power stations have returned to service, representing 2,540MW of capacity.
Planned maintenance is currently 5,739MW while breakdowns amount to 18,041MW of capacity.
“Eskom requests the public to reduce the usage of electricity and to exercise patience and tolerance during this difficult period. Load shedding is implemented only as a last resort in view of the shortage of generation capacity and the need to attend to breakdowns,” it said.
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 opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) says that the African National Congress’s (ANC) plan to shift Eskom away from the Department of Public Enterprises to the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) is ‘irrational and disastrous’.
The party said that it shares the opinion of Professor Anton Eberhard that it would be a grave mistake to move Eskom to the DMRE or even a separate energy ministry.
Eberhard is the director of Power Future Lab, focusing on infrastructure sector investment, management, reform and regulation in Africa.
According to Eberhard, there is an obvious conflict of interest in an energy ministry being Eskom’s shareholder while also having responsibility for competition and regulation in the sector.
“There is a clear and present danger that if this happens, Eskom will never be fully unbundled – as is necessary. Moreover, it will retain its dominant market position, and the envisaged open power exchange and the market will not, in all probability, be implemented, “said the DA.
“Private investment will be pushed to the back burner and under an enhanced version of the status quo – back to the future, as it were – corruption and load-shedding will flourish again.”
“The move also has potentially significant financial implications, which we are busy unravelling.”
On January 9th, President Cyril Ramaphosa said that the energy department would take over the mandate of overseeing the national power utility. This comes after consultation with other officials during the ruling party’s national conference.
The party said that the relevant government departments should oversee specific state companies operating in select economic sectors.