Stage 4 load shedding may happen often

Stage 4 load shedding could become a regular occurrence if breakdowns keep on happening.

Eskom chief executive André de Ruyter said the demand pattern had moved to the typical winter pattern.

De Ruyter said the peaks during the evening were much more pronounced.

“It is really a constraint we have during the peak and we can cope with the demand during the day.

“Fortunately this has placed us in a situation where we have less of an impact on business life in particular,” he said,

“We do understand that after 5pm the impact on the domestic consumer is pronounced and that is highly regrettable.

“We have a challenge with that and we will provide more feedback.

“But at least we are not disrupting the morning peak as well as that during the business hours.”

Eskom’s systems operator general manager Isabel Fick said in the winter period there was a morning and afternoon peak.

Fick said the bigger industries did not close overnight.

“They stay open and there was a high industrial load 24/7,” she said.

While this was a busy time with people returning from work and children coming back from school, Fick said a lot more elements contributed to the demand at that time, as it was a time when more home appliances were being used.

“It was not about preparation but rather an issue of the load going up, for that short period of time,” she said.

Fick said in the middle of the night, the load goes down and it was more of a system network issue.

Eskom’s chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said load shedding increased from stage 3 to stage 4 because of additional breakdowns.

About 36% of total installed capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns and some planned maintenance and power cuts could be increased to 4 000 megawatts (stage 4 load shedding) if more units were lost, he said.

Meanwhile, during its 15th central command team meeting, Economic Freedom Fighters’ leader Julius Malema said the problems of Eskom were part of the ruling party’s intention and method of incapacitating state-owned companies.

This was so these companies could later be handed over to the private sector.

“South Africa’s energy poverty and direction are being diverted by both domestic and global capitalists’ interests,” Malema claimed.