Eskom’s ‘yo-yo load shedding’ adds insult to injury

On Saturday at 11.40 am, South Africans were teased when Eskom announced it would be suspending load shedding “until further notice”.

Of course, in just under four hours it had lost 4 000MW of generation capacity and announced it was bumping us into stage 4 load shedding at 4 pm.

ALSO READ: UPDATE: Stage 4 load shedding returns after Eskom’s brief reprieve

Then by 5 am yesterday, it had found the missing generation capacity again and by 4 pm, lost 2 000MW
again. And today, at the last update, will yo-yo between stages 1, 2, and 4 until Wednesday.

Presidency’s budget vote

This then is likely to be the scenario while we wait for President Cyril Ramaphosa’s promised Electricity Regulation Amendment Bill and Energy Security Bill to kick in.

During the Presidency’s budget vote last week, Ramaphosa said despite the “progress”, Eskom’s generation fleet continues to deteriorate “as a result of its age and a legacy of poor maintenance and underinvestment”.

READ: Presidency’s budget vote another reminder govt is dangerously out of touch

What then of the promised R254 billion debt relief announced in February which would allow Eskom to
concentrate on repairs and maintenance?

Reading between the lines of Ramaphosa’s speech, it seems units at Medupi, Kusile and Koeberg power
stations – representing approximately 4 500MW – will only be returned to service at the end of the year.

“Until then, our best hope of limiting the severity of load shedding is to reduce demand on the grid,” he said.

Changing load shedding stages

It’s difficult to comply with the request when devices such as laptops, phones, and the things that enable
the economy to crawl along when load shedding reduces demand for us involuntarily, need to be charged in preparation for the next round of abuse from Eskom.

And pretending blackouts have been stopped or lifted and then bumping us up four levels adds insult to injury.

We face a difficult winter ahead, Ramaphosa said. With state-sponsored generators at his disposal, he
has no idea.

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