WATCH: Load shedding flings Ramaphosa’s energy plan off the rails

Barely a week after President Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement on steps imminently to be taken to ease the Eskom power crisis, the country has once again been plunged into stage 4 load shedding.

The dark lords of Megawatt did not fail to disappoint millions of angry and frustrated South Africans once again by implementing deliberate power cuts.

Eskom on Wednesday, confirmed that load shedding will be upgraded to stage 4 from 4pm on Thursday.

The power utility had initially announced that it would be implementing stage 2 load shedding from 4pm until 12am on Wednesday as well as Thursday.

ALSO READ: Eskom hopeful that Ramaphosa’s reforms will end load shedding

The dark lords further warned that load shedding could be extended into the weekend despite some generation units being anticipated to return to service over the next few days.

The parastatal cited a shortage of generation capacity coupled with the cold weather conditions for upping the load shedding to stage 4.

It explained that the implementation of load shedding would “assist the parastatal in recovering the emergency generation reserves, which have been utilised extensively to meet the increased demand over the last few days”.

Energy expert Chris Yelland in a tweet said Eskom’s Koeberg Nuclear Power Station is responsible for one stage of load shedding with Unit 2 still not yet even synchronised to the grid after almost six months of shutdown.

“And, despite the 5.5-month shutdown, the major life extension works, namely the replacement of 3 steam generators on Unit 2, was not even started. A further 5-month shutdown will now be required to complete the job on Unit 2. Is the nuclear industry ever on time and on budget?”

One solution to load shedding

Eskom’s underperforming power plants threaten to throw Ramaphosa’s action plan off the rails.

The elaborate plan allows Eskom to speedily acquire more generating power by doing all the things that were previously verboten: allow large-scale private and small-scale domestic generation; bypass incapacitating local content regulations and tariffs; and employ staff according to skill, not race. None of this is new.

In a statement, the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) Ghaleb Cachalia said Eskom’s poor plant performance is clearly a function of a depleted skilled workforce rather than a shortage of financial resources.

“Recently, Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana, pointed out that Eskom had declined Treasury support for a maintenance budget claiming that their generation division already had R8 billion set aside for maintenance.”

Meanwhile, trade union Solidarity said it has sent its list of skilled power experts to Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan and Eskom CEO André de Ruyter.

This comes after Gordhan recently requested Solidarity to draw up such a list in order to address the crisis at Eskom which the Department of Public Enterprises denies.

Solidarity wrote to Gordhan in May, offering to help in mobilising what Gordhan has acknowledged are “critical skills”.

However, the DPE said government has been soliciting the inputs of many organisations and professionals to assist in identifying individuals who can come back to Eskom and help to get the old power stations back in order and mentor younger managers.

“To repeat, the minister did not approach Solidarity. He simply made a call to all organisations, including the social partners, for skilled personnel regardless of race to avail themselves to be placed at Eskom. Various professional and business organisations have responded and offered to assist in this regard.”

Solidarity Chief Executive Dirk Hermann said the approximately 300 experts on its shortlist which it submitted to Gordhan have around 5 500 years of combined experience in the industry, and they also have more than 400 accredited qualifications of which 14 are doctorate degrees in engineering and related fields.

“This list contains some of the country’s leading experts in the field of power. We are astonished, not only by the wealth of expertise and knowledge these individuals offer, but also by their willingness and eagerness to tackle South Africa’s power crisis.

“Among them are also numerous persons who work as qualified international project managers, and they are also internationally sought-after specialists in their field,” Herman added.

Herman emphasised that Eskom must be stabilised as soon as possible, and these specialists have the knowledge and skills to make this happen.

ALSO READ: Solidarity vows to drag Eskom to court if new tariff proposal is approved