ROLLING BLACKOUTS
Presidency stays silent on Energy Action Plan while South Africans kept in the dark
While President Cyril Ramaphosa consorts with royalty and heads of state in the UK, South African businesses and households are — for the second time this year — languishing in long stretches of imposed idleness and silence as Eskom notched things up to Stage 6 power cuts, with efforts to stave off Stage 8. Meanwhile, calls are being made to introduce emergency measures that include energy rationing.
‘Following the tripping of a generating unit each at Kusile and Kriel power stations, Stage 6 load shedding was implemented effective 04:16. Eskom appeals to the public to help conserve electricity,” said Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha in a statement announcing an escalation in rolling blackouts.
It signalled a remarkable escalation in the deterioration of Eskom’s ability to supply South African homes and businesses with electricity after a week that had not been much better.
As Daily Maverick has reported, 2022 has been the worst year for scheduled power cuts by the monopoly energy utility. There have been power cuts on more than 100 days this year — and 2022 was 260 days old on 18 September.
Stage 6 allows for up to 6,000MW of the national load to be shed. Eskom explains that this means consumers can expect to be shed up to 12 times in a four-day period: six times for two hours and six times for four hours.
In the aftermath of the utility imposing Stage 6 in July, Daily Maverick reported that President Cyril Ramaphosa had announced a set of actions to respond to South Africa’s years-long energy crisis.
At the time, Ramaphosa acknowledged that Stage 6 rolling blackouts had “made clear” that “the actions we have taken, and continue to take, are not enough”. He announced five actions as well as “additional measures to achieve long-term energy security and end load shedding for good”.
Daily Maverick has contacted the Presidency for comment on the progress of aspects of the “Energy Action Plan”, but no response had been received at the time of writing.
Turn it off!
Professor Patrick Bond, a political economist and professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg, had some suggestions.
“Energy rationing should urgently be put on the table, now — and not just for time-of-day management, but to consider which users are guzzling irrationally, especially after two of the world’s most polluting, corrupt, over-budget, bust-deadline coal-fired power plants are crashing.”
Bond continued: “What would a sensible Eskom manager … be considering, to ration energy now? A couple of easy ones: South32 [spun out of BHP Billiton in 2015] smelters; [and] Sasol’s Secunda operation. [It] is a terrible drain on national energy resources, [and is] doing so much damage to the climate and local folk.”
Both companies are members of the Energy Intensive Users Group (EIUG) and Bond suggested that their operations be curtailed to get the power crisis under control.
Members of the EIUG account for roughly 40% of the electricity consumed in South Africa. South32’s Hillside smelter in KwaZulu-Natal is Eskom’s largest energy-intensive customer at 1,205MW, which is equivalent to one stage of rolling blackouts.
Public ‘still in the dark’
Power cuts have been escalated at a time when Eskom is seeking a 32% increase in electricity tariffs from April next year.
The official opposition in Parliament was quick to have its say on this most recent escalation of the electricity supply crisis. In a statement, Democratic Alliance (DA) members of Parliament Kevin Mileham and Ghaleb Cachalia said: “The DA calls for the immediate return of President Cyril Ramaphosa to South Africa to address the worsening electricity crisis that is one load-shedding stage away from a total grid collapse.”
The DA said that despite Ramaphosa having announced an urgent energy action plan two months ago, the South African public was “still in the dark” with regard to progress on a number of its interventions:
“Almost two months after announcement of the plan, the country is still in the dark on:
- Recruitment or rehiring of experienced former Eskom staff (engineers, power station managers);
- Procurement of electricity from neighbouring countries (just an admission that negotiations are ongoing);
- The plan to eliminate sabotage, theft and fraud at Eskom; and
- National Treasury’s plan to expand tax incentives for residential and commercial installations, which is still pending.”
Read more in Daily Maverick: “Here it is: Ramaphosa’s ‘energy action plan’ to end SA’s rolling blackouts”
“Eskom’s failure to provide reliable supply of electricity makes the 32% tariff increase application to Nersa [National Energy Regulator of South Africa] simply out of touch with reality,” the DA said, reiterating its call that Eskom should not be rewarded for keeping South Africans in the dark.
“Consumers must not be forced to bear the financial burden of the ANC government’s failure to address an electricity crisis that has been 15 years in the making. In view of the state’s patent failure to deliver on Eskom’s mandate it is time for the private sector to be engaged with urgency,” the DA said.
Western Cape backup plans
The DA-led Western Cape government outlined in a media statement what it would be doing to ameliorate the effects of the power cuts and prepare for higher levels of rolling blackouts over the next week.
Anton Bredell, Western Cape MEC for local government, environmental affairs and development planning, said: “We are monitoring diesel levels for backup systems, security at critical infrastructure, and the situation at hospitals and old-age homes.
“Because Eskom cannot at this stage say for how long high levels of load shedding will be implemented, we must ensure essential systems that provide for water and sewage can function on backup power for the near future.”
On Saturday, 17 September, the City of Cape Town’s Water and Sanitation Directorate warned residents about some of the potential impacts of the higher level of load shedding: “Some higher-lying areas may experience low pressure or supply disruptions in the event of a power outage affecting the booster water pump stations which are required in some areas to convey water to the reservoirs supplying the higher-lying areas across the City.
“Should residents in these areas — particularly in the northern and southern parts of the city — experience low pressure, this could likely be due to the impact of load shedding.” DM
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No doubt sabotage, whenever CR leaves the country for an important international event which could demonstrate the prestige in which he is held or recognition for South Africa, the RET faction white ants the process by switching off the power.
The smelter cannot be simply shut down. It has to be de-commissioned which takes months and the owners will probably cut their losses and move to the middle east aka Coega and the loss of that potential smelter to Oman, thanks to the electricity variables. To simply cut it off will result in damage in excess of R20Bn from a frozen potline, the loss of many jobs and a chunk of our remnant industrial capacity. To shut down SASOL will have disastrous consequences for fuel stocks and prices which we know escalates to affect everything else due to the lack of a proper rail system and the reliance of commuters on informal transport.
You cannot fix old power stations quickly or cheaply. Whatever we do now, it has to be decisive, immediate and HUGE. 8000MW huge with potential to grow by 10% every year to pick up the escalating slack from ESKOM.
Excellent, rational and sensible comment.
Excellent rationale!
Unfortunately the fools in parliament have no common sense whatsoever!
Besides having no communication from the presidency, we are also waiting to hear from our bungling minister of mineral resources and energy. I don’t care what the Western Cape government are doing as I buy power directly from Eskom. Where are the 5 IPP’s we’ve been hearing about?
Your fourth point about treasury can “expanding” tax incentives for residential installations when no such incentive even exists. If I could reduce my electricity bill to almost nothing by installing solar power and save 20% of the cost of installing them, I would already have done so.
This would be a tiny drop in consumption for Eskom, but it could be significant if whole communities could afford to do so. Yes, SARS would take a drop in revenue, but it could be significant if treasury did not have to bail out SOE’s to the tune of multiple billions every year.
You can save more than 20% on the installation costs. SARS has a 12B allowance for accelerated depreciation for installation of Solar. You can as a company or sole prop depreciate 100% of the cost of the solar system in the year that you install it. Not sure as an individual perhaps chat to your accountant.
I wonder what South32 pay for electricity currently. I bet they are not incurring a 32% increase next year,
The President and all his merry men racing to put Humpty Dumpty together again will achieve exactly what has done for at least 15 years. Absolutely nothing. The word “plan” does not exist in government ideology.
Medupi only generates 2.8GW of power ( when it is running) and costed R140bn. For 5 years in a row, Germany installed 7 GW of PV solar per year. This requires installation of 14 million panels per year. If one person installs 25 panels per day, we need about 2500 people. The cost of the panels will be about the same as Eskom current diesel costs. Last year, the SA government installed 0GW of PV solar while the rest of the world installed a total of 165 GW. We can solve our energy problems in less than 12 months and create jobs. The financial model and viability has been proven over and over. South Africa has twice the sunlight than Europe.
Our backbone lacking president ends his trip prematurely, what for? He has been the “supervisor” of Eskom since the Zuma days and things have only gone worse. He has demonstrated his incompetence so many times that it is a waste of time even writing about it. I also need to point a finger at the top management of Eskom. They not only keep us in the dark by not delivering, they also keep us in the dark by not speaking out.
Frogboiler was sent by Zuma a few years back to head up the “Eskom War Room” to bring an end to load shedding. Impact? ZERO! In fact, the situation now far worse than ever. We must never lose sight of the fact that in 1994 Eskom was one of the top 5 most efficient energy producers on the planet. How did we get here….?
The overall problem at Eskom is that since 2007 when load shedding startede, their was a lack of the right technical skills to maintain and grow the electricity generation and distribution infrastructure needed in South Africa. The question is where will our country get the right skills and experience to turn this under-performing business around in a short space of time.
My humbnle proposal is to approach the goverments of the original manufacturers of the equipment that is used in our power generation activities. Plead with them to make the neccesary technical resources available to Eskom to service and re-condition our infrastructure to immediately address the problem of enough power generation. This important step will give South Africa a window of opportunity to build new and sensible generation capacity. Parralel to the mentionmed approach, recruit experts to train people to be able to service, maintain and grow the needed electricity provision for the future. South Africa have the capacity and enough talent who will rise to the top through world class education.
The call for help should also include that the govenments, that are requested to make skills availabkle to South Africa, also be requested to fund the emergencey task force that is needed in South Africa at this point.
It is time that business as well as the citicens of South Africa take hands to unlock the talent and future of this country, for all South Africans.
Have you ever wondered why the Suppliers to Eskom you refer to get paid and new contracts placed despite all the problems with Medupi and Khusile?
I acknowledge that all South Africans lose the moment the power grid is not operated at near 100% efficiency.
The 3 problems requiring immediate intervention are to free up funds to assist Eskom to carry out repairs and maintenance and employ competent staff.
– I propose the following to save money to allow for saved funds to be re-directed to Eskom:
– An immediate moratorium is to be placed on replacing or purchasing any new or additional passenger motor vehicles.
– An immediate moratorium on the purchasing of or upgrading of any residential property owned by the state.
– An immediate moratorium on every allowable expense in terms of the government handbook applicable to MP’s etc. (read: Government both National and Regional)
– Refreshments at functions are restricted to coffee/tea/ bottled water and biscuits only.
– The immediate passing of a law that allows employers AND employees of essential services such as electricity, water and sanitation services immediate relaxation of the conditions of employment to allow for the immediate dismissal of incompetent staff which would allow for the swift removal of dead wood (read: cadre deployment) and the swift replacement by competent persons to these positions.
This should be a good start.
I believe that political public service should be a voluntary activity, no salary or perks, just a basic wage to cover expenses, with their lifestyle and finances regularly audited and transparent to the people. The job is thereby limited to only those that have a love for the people, which of course they all claim to be.
There would be far fewer low-life parasites posing as politicians and perhaps just a handful of dedicated people who really want to be of service to the people.
So many plans but too few people to put them together. Just watched the Queen’s funeral, I couldn’t help wondering what Cyril was sitting thinking during the service! Was he wondering where he went wrong I wonder?
He was wondering how far he’d get making a grab for the Crown Jewels. Might be enough ransom there to stuff a few sofas and buy some diesel for Eksdom. Would be the most useful thing he’s done for SA.
Much better to finally and irrevocably to cut off both the saboteurs trying to destabilise our country, and those that, since 1994 have refused to pay.
To expect of Sasol to stop its operation is completely unrealistic. We should keep in mind that Sasol is also providing an essential service to SA: the provision of fuel. The suspension of operations by aluminium smelters however can be done. I believe there are even more of these smelters that can be targeted.
We only have one significant aluminium smelter, Hillside. The other one, Bayside, was ancient and was shut down years ago.