Eskom says it is relieved the application brought by Rural Maintenance — electricity distributor for Mafube Local Municipality in the Free State — and its subsidiary Rural Free State (RFS) was dismissed with costs by the Johannesburg high court on Thursday.
The dispute concerned the threat by Eskom to interfere with the so-called “self load-shedding” taking place in the Mafube local municipality.
Rural said it implemented a trial solar system project aimed at reducing the effect of load-shedding in Frankfort through a system of “voiding”. It said this allowed the company to manage the town’s own load-shedding schedule.
When Eskom expressed concerns about Rural's operations, the latter went to court seeking to restrain the power utility from taking control of the point of connection of the national grid which supplies the distribution network in Frankfort.
The Johannesburg high court on Thursday dismissed the application, after finding the case was not properly before court. This was because of the absence of a mandate from Mafube Local Municipality to institute legal proceedings.
Stefanie Jansen van Rensburg, Eskom's Free State spokesperson, said the power utility approved Rural’s application to implement self load-shedding on January 25.
“Self load-shedding allows a qualifying municipality to protect its critical loads such as sewerage systems and water pumps from interruptions. RFS started implementing self load-shedding on February 1.”
Eskom said problems between the two parties emerged when RFS introduced “voiding”, a term created by RFS to describe a situation where it did not implement load-shedding as per the approved schedules during daytime hours when its solar PV plant was in optimal operation.
Eskom repeatedly rejected this and attempted to help RFS understand why this was in violation of the load-shedding code of practice.
“It is at this stage that Rural Maintenance opted to institute legal processes against Eskom,” she said.
She said in the case of Frankfort, the generation capacity of the solar plant was not sufficient to cover all the electricity needs of the town during load-shedding. Even during daytime hours when the plant was running at optimal operation, a portion of the town’s electricity requirements were still supplied by Eskom.
“As in the rest of the country, the Eskom-supplied electricity to Frankfort is also subject to load-shedding.”
She said if RFS was able to substitute the Eskom-supplied portion through alternative electricity sources, such as electricity from battery storage or another generation facility that is only employed during a power outage, RFS would have been able to eliminate the need for load-shedding.
Jansen van Rensburg said in the case of Frankfort, the generation was already included as part of the normal load profile and as such could not be offset against load-shedding.
“The PV plant in Frankfort has no standby capability to offset the total demand, thus the plant’s output forms part of the system base load and Frankfort remains subjected to load-shedding,” she said.
It has dismissed Rural statement that it would “continue to apply power cuts to the community members who could otherwise have made use of the sun electricity produced by the solar farm”.
Eskom said the statement was misleading as Eskom did not place any restrictions on their use of self-generated electricity.
“Eskom welcomes the use of independent power producers that can assist in alleviating load-shedding.
“What Eskom requires from Rural Free State as a responsible participant in the national grid is to comply with the requirement of the code of practice in order to protect the national electricity network in the interests of the country as a whole.”
TimesLIVE
Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.
Eskom sets the record straight on Frankfort self load-shedding case
Image: Masi Losi
Eskom says it is relieved the application brought by Rural Maintenance — electricity distributor for Mafube Local Municipality in the Free State — and its subsidiary Rural Free State (RFS) was dismissed with costs by the Johannesburg high court on Thursday.
The dispute concerned the threat by Eskom to interfere with the so-called “self load-shedding” taking place in the Mafube local municipality.
Rural said it implemented a trial solar system project aimed at reducing the effect of load-shedding in Frankfort through a system of “voiding”. It said this allowed the company to manage the town’s own load-shedding schedule.
When Eskom expressed concerns about Rural's operations, the latter went to court seeking to restrain the power utility from taking control of the point of connection of the national grid which supplies the distribution network in Frankfort.
The Johannesburg high court on Thursday dismissed the application, after finding the case was not properly before court. This was because of the absence of a mandate from Mafube Local Municipality to institute legal proceedings.
Stefanie Jansen van Rensburg, Eskom's Free State spokesperson, said the power utility approved Rural’s application to implement self load-shedding on January 25.
“Self load-shedding allows a qualifying municipality to protect its critical loads such as sewerage systems and water pumps from interruptions. RFS started implementing self load-shedding on February 1.”
Eskom said problems between the two parties emerged when RFS introduced “voiding”, a term created by RFS to describe a situation where it did not implement load-shedding as per the approved schedules during daytime hours when its solar PV plant was in optimal operation.
Eskom repeatedly rejected this and attempted to help RFS understand why this was in violation of the load-shedding code of practice.
“It is at this stage that Rural Maintenance opted to institute legal processes against Eskom,” she said.
She said in the case of Frankfort, the generation capacity of the solar plant was not sufficient to cover all the electricity needs of the town during load-shedding. Even during daytime hours when the plant was running at optimal operation, a portion of the town’s electricity requirements were still supplied by Eskom.
“As in the rest of the country, the Eskom-supplied electricity to Frankfort is also subject to load-shedding.”
She said if RFS was able to substitute the Eskom-supplied portion through alternative electricity sources, such as electricity from battery storage or another generation facility that is only employed during a power outage, RFS would have been able to eliminate the need for load-shedding.
Jansen van Rensburg said in the case of Frankfort, the generation was already included as part of the normal load profile and as such could not be offset against load-shedding.
“The PV plant in Frankfort has no standby capability to offset the total demand, thus the plant’s output forms part of the system base load and Frankfort remains subjected to load-shedding,” she said.
It has dismissed Rural statement that it would “continue to apply power cuts to the community members who could otherwise have made use of the sun electricity produced by the solar farm”.
Eskom said the statement was misleading as Eskom did not place any restrictions on their use of self-generated electricity.
“Eskom welcomes the use of independent power producers that can assist in alleviating load-shedding.
“What Eskom requires from Rural Free State as a responsible participant in the national grid is to comply with the requirement of the code of practice in order to protect the national electricity network in the interests of the country as a whole.”
TimesLIVE
Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.
READ MORE
Free State town loses its solar reprieve to load-shedding
Cape Town’s green light to R1.2bn project to shield residents from a full stage of load-shedding
Here to stay: Stage 6 load-shedding will continue until further notice
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.
Most read
Latest Videos