Businesses battling for survival under load-shedding, says chamber CEO
Extreme load-shedding is placing Nelson Mandela Bay manufacturers under immense strain and it is essential that all stakeholders work together to find emergency solutions to mitigate the risks.
This is according to Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Denise van Huyssteen.
She said extreme load-shedding had become the norm and manufacturers were struggling to retain the viability of their operations.
“It is now a question of survival for many manufacturers over the coming weeks and months.
“Nelson Mandela Bay’s economy is in a particularly vulnerable situation, given that manufacturing represents 20% of our local economic activity and has a massive downstream impact on many other sectors of our economy.”
She said a survey conducted by the chamber for the first quarter of the year indicated that one in five businesses had cut jobs and more than 90% were halting investment and expansion plans.
It also revealed 75% of businesses surveyed had been forced to implement short-time, while 18% reported job cuts.
“We will conduct another survey for the second quarter and unfortunately anticipate that the feedback will be even more severe.”
She said collaborative interventions between the chamber and the municipality had been key in keeping the doors of manufacturers open.
“Of particular importance is the 24-hour stage 5 [and plus] schedule which allows for better planning of production operations around load-shedding through the limitation of the frequency of interruptions and the adoption of 24-hour shutdowns instead.”
So far, 35 manufacturers have met the criteria to be on schedule.
“We are hoping that more will be incorporated.
“This approach is suitable for manufacturers who operate according to continuous production processes.
“We greatly appreciate that the municipality has had the foresight to work with us on the 24-hour schedule and extend our thanks to them for partnering with us on this.
“There is no doubt this has already saved thousands of jobs.”
Van Huyssteen said the chamber welcomed the municipality’s proposal to introduce load curtailment as a loadshedding mitigation measure, but this should be deployed among manufacturers who followed batch or related production processes.
“The approach should be to get as many manufacturers as possible onto the 24-hour schedule and load-curtailment options, depending on which works, as quickly as possible.”
She also highlighted the need to urgently access emergency power.
“To this end, we are pleased that the municipality is undertaking a study to potentially get its gas turbine generation facility at Mount Road up and running.
“It is vital that this study is concluded as soon as possible and engagement takes place with business so that we can assist to accelerate this coming to fruition.”
She said manufacturers were playing their part to reduce non-essential and other loads wherever possible.
“Based on feedback that we have received from our manufacturing members, cumulatively they have permanently reduced demand by 25MW.
“This is more than one stage of load-shedding for the city.”
The chamber’s renewable energy cluster, which comprises more than 33 of the metro’s manufacturers and accounts for about 20% of electricity consumption, could potentially bring an additional 100MW of power onto the grid during 2025.
“Though the country’s regulatory environment around independent power generation has been eased, its main shortcoming is that power which is generated from any location in the country simply goes back into the national grid.
“This currently is not ringfenced and is used as an offset to load-shedding at a local level.
“Our view is that the renewable energy produced at the cost of local businesses and consumers must benefit Nelson Mandela Bay as a whole and as we bring more power onto the grid, this should directly reduce levels of loadshedding for our metro.”