ESKOM: STAGE SIX CUTS

Nation shocked at massive loadshedding

Eskom announces its harshest power cuts across SA

The country reacted with shock on Monday night as Eskom announced unprecedented stage 6 load-shedding, simply citing a “shortage of capacity”.

The business community, in particular, said the timing could not be worse ahead of the festive season spending spree.

In a statement on Monday evening, Eskom said the stage 6 load-shedding was a result of “a technical problem” at Medupi power station impacting additional generation supply.

Rainfall was also blamed by the ailing power utility.

“The heavy rains have caused coal handling and operational problems at several power stations,” Eskom said.

However, it said this was not a cause for alarm. “We remind and assure customers that loadshedding at stage 6 is no cause for alarm as the system is being effectively controlled. Stage 6 requires 6,000MW to be rotationally loadshed.”

It continued in a Facebook post that Eskom’s emergency response command centre and technical teams “will be working through the night to restore units as soon as possible”.

“Eskom is working closely with large industry to assist with further load curtailment. Loadshedding is a responsible act and highly controlled process, implemented to protect the country from a national blackout.

After 2015, Eskom and the municipalities identified the need to extend the loadshedding stages up to stage 8 and the national code (NRS048-9 Ed 2) was subsequently updated.

To date, Eskom has only implemented loadshedding up until Stage 4. Stage 5 and Stage 6 load-shedding means shedding 5,000 MW and 6,000 MW respectively.

It is estimated that load-shedding costs the national economy between R20bn and R80bn a month.

DA interim leader John Steenhuisen called stage 6 loadshedding “uncharted territory“, that would be devastating for the economy and the country, “fatal for growth and jobs.”

“Time for government to level with South Africans about what is actually going on, I’m not buying this wet coal story!,” he said in a tweet.

Cas Coovadia, CEO of Business Unity SA, said the timing was worse because the power cuts had come when businesses were looking forward to a festive season boost.

But the added costs associated with load shedding, such as having to shut down during power outages or invest in costly electricity generators, would make it difficult for smaller to medium-sized enterprises.

“Larger businesses have a way to mitigate these factors, but for the average business, a generator may not be an option,” said Coovadia.

At Ushaka Marine World in Durban, aquarium curator Simon Chater said there was a large cost in installing the five major generators that kept the park up and running when the power went off.

He said guests were often not aware that load shedding was happening at all because the generators kept the tanks oxygenated, the animals happy, and the lights on.

In March, concerns were already raised about Eskom announcing as high as stage 8 load-shedding, although this was later denied by the power utility.

At the time, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan conceded that it would be a “huge struggle” to overcome the electricity crisis.

Meanwhile, Gonubie was without electricity for 12 hours on Sunday, leading some residents to question why there were power cuts outside of Eskom’s loadshedding times.

BCM confirmed the outage, from 6am to 6pm, was a result of planned maintenance on the Quenera View substation.