Cape Town - Eskom’s recent announcement of stage 6 load shedding has raised alarm among political and economic analysts who view it as a significant setback for the country’s economy, while the City of Cape Town said it could not guarantee protection of up to two stages of load shedding for its customers if Sunday’s trend persists.
Electricity and Energy Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said the country was plunged into load shedding following the loss of four units at Camden Power Station in Mpumalanga.
However, Ramokgopa vowed that the issues would be resolved by the end of the week.
Detailing the sequence of events, Ramokgopa said five units tripped at Majuba on Saturday, taking about 3 000MW off line, which prompted stage 3 load shedding.
He added that overnight to Sunday, four units went down at Camden Power station at about 1:30 in the morning, which resulted in the escalation of load shedding to stage 6, while over 7 000MW is off line for planned maintenance and emergency reserves are being used up and need to be replenished for the week ahead.
City of Cape Town mayco member for Energy, Xanthea Limberg, said much was being done to sustain energy and provide relief but that this wasn't always possible.
"Where possible, the City typically provides protection of up to two stages of load shedding at lower Eskom load shedding stages, and depending on the demand.
"At non-stop stage 6, the City is unable to protect customers significantly if at all especially on weekends when the Steenbras power scheme is used to build reserves for the week ahead.
"The City will protect its customers as much as it can if load shedding continues into the week and is monitoring the situation and planning ahead.
“It remains the only metro in SA to offer a level of protection where feasible," Limberg said.
Professor Ntsikelelo Benjamin Breakfast, a political analyst and acting Director of the Center for Security, Peace and Conflict Resolution at Nelson Mandela University said the stage 6 load shedding is a blow to the GNU, because there is a minister appointed to make Eskom up to scratch.
“This is a setback on the large scale, because it means that the past is still with us and that we are not out of the woods yet. We thought that in the build-up to the elections that power outage was a thing of the past, but it looks like we were wrong. We are back to square one. What is the purpose of the minister if the job cannot be done?” Breakfast said.
Economist Duma Gqubule said stage 6 load shedding is a crisis for the economy and it is going to have wide implications in terms of economic growth and it will also affect jobs.
“The government has not been investing in infrastructure. They must invest in the transport and energy infrastructures. In Johannesburg, there is a huge load reduction due to infrastructure breakdown at a distributor level and they also have water infrastructure failures, which is bad for the economy,” Gqubule said.
Eskom CEO Dan Marokane said that of the 10 units lost, six have been returned to service, with 3 200MW being brought back online, with two more units expected to come back yesterday.
“All units should be online by Tuesday, with all systems recovered by the end of the week.
“Stage 6 load shedding is necessary to protect enough capacity to restore emergency reserves, which will likely be used extensively this coming week,” he said.
Marokane added that , Eskom will look at stepping down from stage 6.