Load shedding excuses are dim, Minister Ramokgopa

Those of us without generators or solar back-up power – possibly unlike our Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa – will be relieved to know that, according to the minister, the latest lapse back into stage 6 load shedding was planned.

Not only that, it is a good thing, because it means Eskom’s “aggressive maintenance” is building us a brighter future. No pain, no gain, was the minister’s message on Sunday.

However, there is just one fly in the particular ointment of an excuse: if this was planned, minister, why were you and the Eskom staff running around on Sunday like headless chickens, apologising for the “inconvenience”?

You don’t apologise for something which you’re expecting. If you’re caught flat-footed, maybe.

We tend to think the latter is what was the major cause of Eskom chucking South Africa into the time machine and taking us back at least a year.

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The fact that there were unexpected failures of generating units at multiple power stations shows that, aggressive or not, the maintenance regime is not exactly working as it should.

The failure rate is exacerbated by the fact that private solar power systems now account for between 10% and 15% of total grid capacity – or, put another way, demand for Eskom has declined by that much in the past three or four years.

And yet, instead of being praised for helping ease the strain on the public power utility, solar power users – who have invested their own money in providing an alternative – are regarded as parasitic thieves by daring to use the Eskom grid as a supplement for their renewable energy sources.

Solar power users are being warned to register their systems – at huge cost – or face the pain of prosecution. Make it make sense, please.

Perhaps we should resign ourselves to the fact that load shedding never really went away.

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