Free State town loses its solar reprieve to load-shedding

Rural Maintenance Free State says it is disappointed with the high court's decision to dismiss its urgent application against Eskom to maintain the status quo over the issue of “voiding” during load-shedding.

Earlier this year, Rural Free State, contracted to manage Mafube local municipality’s electricity network, implemented a trial solar system project aimed at reducing the effect of load-shedding in Frankfort through a system of “voiding”.

This allows the company to manage the town’s own load-shedding schedule, a move that was reportedly initially approved by Eskom. This resulted in the town having fewer outages, with the alternative power produced by a private solar facility powering the city during scheduled load-shedding hours.

The project was implemented on a three-month trial basis in February after an apparent agreement with Eskom, but the state utility backtracked a month later, saying what the company put forward is not what it had understood it to be.

They have called for the National Energy Regulatory of South Africa's (Nersa) intervention.

Eskom reportedly threatened to disconnect the town if it did not stop the project pending Nersa’s decision on its legality. 

Rural Free State then brought an urgent application in the  high court in Johannesburg to allow it to continue the initiative until Nersa made a decision. 

The matter was heard on April 5 before judge Edwin Molahlehi and the ruling handed down on April 20.

Molahlehi ruled the “applicants' case is not properly before the court and therefore ... stands to fail” because they failed to produce an affidavit confirming the municipality “had authorised the institution of this application”.

He also ordered Rural Free State, its parent company Rural Maintenance and the Mafube Business Forum to pay the costs of the urgent application “jointly and severally” and with “the one paying the others to be absolved”.

Rural Free State said on Friday despite its “best efforts to lighten the negative effects of load-shedding in Frankfort”, it would be forced to comply with Eskom's instructions and apply power cuts as scheduled.

“To reiterate, this means Rural Free State will no longer be allowed to lessen the negative effects of load-shedding when the sun is shining and will have to dump unused solar power energy while parts of Frankfort experience load-shedding.

“We are disappointed with the outcome of the case — especially as there is no negative effect for the Eskom national grid. It is especially hard to swallow the reluctance of the Mafube local municipality to support Rural's effort to lessen load-shedding, while constant load-shedding seems to be our future.”

Rural Free State vowed to continue engaging Eskom and Nersa “in an attempt to try to understand Eskom's reluctance to support Rural's initiative”.

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