Court dismissal forces town to have load shedding, dump excess solar power

Residents and business owners in the Free State town of Frankfort will today face renewed debilitating load shedding despite the excess energy available to them from four private solar farms in the area.

Portions of the solar panels will be shut down and stand idle, leaving residents at the mercy of the non-performing Eskom.

This is because the local Mafube municipality failed to support a court application by its own service provider Rural Maintenance, to retain control over the implementation of load shedding in the municipal area.

Moneyweb earlier reported that Rural Maintenance, contracted by Mafube to manage its electricity distribution function for 25 years, entered into an agreement with Eskom at the beginning of this year to take over the implementation of load shedding in the municipal area.

Company managed to keep load shedding at bay

The company then fine-tuned the schedules and was able to keep the power supply supporting water and sewerage services intact as well as accommodate the specific needs of households and businesses.

It also started utilising solar power from four solar farms in the area to supplement the Eskom power supply to Frankfort during the day at a lower cost.

Also Read: We will fight Eskom up to the Constitutional Court – IPPs

Whenever the supply from the solar farms exceeds the amount of capacity to be cut during load shedding, it would keep the lights on. This is called “voiding”.

Eskom objected to this practice and demanded to take back control of load shedding.

A court application by Rural Maintenance to retain control pending the finalisation of its dispute with Eskom by energy regulator Nersa now failed in the High Court in Johannesburg, because the Mafube municipality failed to support Rural Maintenance’s application, which undermined the company’s legal standing.

The court did not deal with the merits of the application at all.

Chris Bosch, CEO of Rural Maintenance issued the following statement to the community of Frankfort on Thursday 20 April, after being notified of the court ruling.

• This article originally appeared on Moneyweb and has been republished with permission. The original can be read here.