SA left in the dark – on two fronts

There’s very little that gets South Africans’ blood boiling faster than load shedding. Throw in the mix the recent heavy downpours and the restrictions imposed on us due to Covid-19, and you have a restless nation confined largely indoors. On Friday morning, Eskom announced it was introducing Stage 2 load shedding, starting at noon and ending late yesterday evening. We should probably be grateful that the power utility halted load shedding yesterday morning after “generation capacity had recovered”, but that’s not the point.

Eskom said they had to implement power cuts due to the shutdown of generating units at its Medupi power station, caused by an inability to get coal into the units due to heavy rains. In other words, wet coal – again.

Energy expert Chris Yelland lashed out at Eskom, saying: “There’s nothing unusual about rain in summer. The system should be resilient enough to cater for normal and abnormal weather patterns. Power systems should be designed and operated with sufficient resilience to withstand most environmental conditions.”

However, as much as Eskom’s repetitive excuses angered the public, it was City Power’s bungle on Friday that really irked us. People made plans for work, school and at home based on the schedule provided by Eskom. A few hours into load shedding and something was amiss – the schedule was not correct.

City Power, a few hours late, finally broke their silence, saying “the talks with Eskom and the plan towards aligning our load shedding schedules and to communicate the new schedule with you before its implementation, have been overtaken by power generation and supply challenges on the Eskom side which have now compelled us to implement a two-hour load shedding schedule before embarking on a proper engagement and communications with you as the customer. We now have to communicate the two-hour load shedding schedule as we implement it and we understand the inconvenience and shock it causes to you and your business and for that, we apologise”.

Come on Eskom and City Power. You owe it to South Africa to communicate better.