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ESKOM will go down as the Grinch who stole Christmas this year as South Africa heads into the festive season and load shedding continues unabated.
Despite a boost of 50 million litres of diesel supplied by state-owned entity PetroSA this week, experts warn that it will only last for 10 days and that the situation was unlikely to improve.
“We are certainly moving closer to a Stage 8 total grid meltdown, the chances are more than 70%. And we will see Stage 6 load shedding before the end of the year,” said energy analyst Ted Blom.
He said Stage 8 meant 13 hours of load shedding a day. The load-shedding app EskomSePush said that, so far in 2022, there had been 2,975 hours (124 days) of load shedding.
On Saturday day afternoon, Eskom tweeted that load shedding would be maintained at Stage 2 continuously until further notice. “There will be no Stage 3 load shedding during the evenings, as had been previously communicated,” it said.
According to Blom, who previously worked at Eskom, load shedding could not be prevented by burning diesel: it would only have an impact on the stage of load shedding implemented.
“The level of load shedding can be two to three times lower if they burn diesel. If there is not enough plant running on the coal side, then the diesel can’t stop load shedding. The question is did that diesel suddenly fall out of the sky? Who is paying for the diesel and is the accounting system so poor at PetroSA that we were not aware of it?” asked Blom.
Earlier this week Eskom warned that load shedding would be more erratic because of diesel shortages as the diesel generation capacity normally provided a buffer when the power utility’s generating units break down.
Blom said there was no guarantee that a total collapse of the grid could be avoided or that the lights would stay on this festive season. He said those taking advantage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals should look at buying small inverters and solar panels to keep their critical systems going.
“I’m very suspicious of the 50 million litres of diesel that was suddenly found by PetroSA and that they are giving to Eskom for free because Eskom doesn’t have the money to pay. That’s a helluva lot of diesel. They are either lying to the public or playing the public,” said Blom.
For those worried about the big days in December, Blom has warned that the possibility of load shedding on Christmas Day is higher than 50%.
“Eskom burns 9 million litres a day so the diesel will last five, maybe six days. They are not going to burn the diesel flat out, they are going to burn half of that a day so it can last.”
Matric pupils worried about the effect the situation would have on the release of their final results have been assured that all will be well.
Biki Lepota, a spokesperson for Umalusi, the council for quality assurance in education, said that while load shedding would have an impact on the marking of matric exams, it would not be as severe as it had been in centres where pupils were writing.
“There are 7,200 examination centres versus around 500 marking centres. It will be easier to make plans, such as installing generators, at marking centres,” he said.
Hospital group Netcare said despite the country’s power constraints they could still deliver safe, sustainable services to their patients because all it’s facilities had back-up generators that run on diesel.
“With the increasing load shedding frequency, Netcare facilities have used more than double the amount of diesel compared with previous years. We have no option but to make provision for back-up power to keep our hospitals operational,” said Andre Nortje, the group’s national environmental sustainability manager.
The unpredictable power supply also had devastating effects on food production.
Christo van der Rheede, executive director of Agri SA, called load shedding “the biggest constraint on South Africa’s economic growth”.
“Achieving energy security is our single most important objective as a country.”
It affected different aspects of agriculture in different ways, he said. When it comes to irrigation, it can force farmers to irrigate at the wrong time, such as during the heat of the day, he said.
“Then there is the constant replanning of irrigation scheduling: changing timers on pumps to accommodate this. Every day is different, so it costs management time to explain to 10 irrigation staff that every day is different.”
Then, it was also time consuming to ensure it was done correctly. There was a yield loss if farmers were not driving around restarting pumps and boreholes could not be activated.
It also posed a security threat.
On the operations front, labour-intensive pack houses with thousands of workers go idle when the electricity is turned off.
“The impact on staff is that they must get up very early or get home late from their duties such as milking. They then have no lights, stoves to cook or other amenities that low-income people depend on.”
Different commodities were impaired in their own way.
“Crop damage occurs as a result of interrupted irrigation schedules,” said Van der Rheede.
Poultry saw a loss of egg production because of disruptions in lighting; cold storage and pack houses for table grapes, for which peak season starts next month, run on electricity; livestock producers need electricity to keep semen refrigerated at 17ºC; dairies are dependent on electricity for milking.
While the tourism industry is hoping to cash in on holidaymakers this festive season after the impact of Covid-related losses, it has also taken a knock because of load shedding.
The East Coast chairperson of the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa, Brett Tungay, said the effects had been devastating.
He said despite the government’s call to develop small businesses, they were the ones suffering the most because they couldn’t afford alternative means of power generation.
He said restaurants and small guest houses, in particular, were taking huge knocks.
Tungay, who owns the Dragon Peaks Mountain Resort in the Drakensberg, said there were businesses with generation capacity that were literally burning all of their profit margins in diesel.
“If I take my own resort, we are literally paying guests to stay here… it’s expected as a resort or hotel to have the lights on. Whether you have 30 guests in house or 300 guests in house your generators run.”
Tungay said their profits were literally going up in smoke.
Selina Ryan, co-owner of Celtic Electrical Engineering, an electrical contracting company in Cape Town, said they had seen an increase in requests for quotes from people and businesses looking for alternative sources of energy.
She said while manufacturers and importers of certain products were benefiting, the ongoing load shedding had devastating consequences on the economy as a whole.
“It’s had some benefits for us as well as for stockists of inverters, solar lights and generators. So to a degree something having a negative impact on one side of the economy is having a positive impact elsewhere,” said Ryan.
Brendan Roche-Kelly, a chorister at the Liberal Catholic Church in Observatory, said he expected that the church organ would be silent if there was load shedding.
He said a load-shedding Christmas would also see people using WhatsApp to make plans in advance rather than on the hour “as they do these days”.
“And there will be more candles for necessity’s sake rather than for atmosphere.”