Load-shedding affects consumer behaviour, lowers confidence: Busa

Load-shedding has far-reaching effects on the South African economy and society, disrupting business operations and altering consumer behaviour, experts say. 

Eskom implemented stage three load-shedding on Saturday, but increased it to stage six in the early hours of Sunday due to multiple unit trips while other units were out due to maintenance.

According to Happy Khambule, energy and environment director at Business Unity South Africa (Busa), the immediate impact of load-shedding is a significant reduction in productivity, particularly within the primary sector, where power outages hinder essential activities such as mineral extraction and other industries.

Khambule said service industries are also forced to adjust their operating hours based on electricity availability, which further disrupts economic flow. 

Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has reassured South Africans that the recent implementation of load-shedding is not due to sabotage but technical issues. He promised that the electricity supply would stabilise by the end of the week.

Khambule said while Eskom said the severity of stage six load-shedding may ease soon, even short-term disruptions have lasting consequences.

“This should be a short-term issue, but the problem we are facing is that even in that short-term period consumers might not feel the things that they want to buy or access in terms of services will be available because of load-shedding's impact on businesses operating hours," Khambule said.

He said this will lead to a much bigger problem where consumer behaviour starts to change. "That's a problem we'll be facing, like we did when we had long-term load-shedding.”

Khambule said they were encouraged by the minister saying the current bout of load-shedding would not last for long.  “By Monday we should at least start seeing a bit of a recovery.”

Energy expert Ruse Moleshe agreed with Khambule that load-shedding has a negative impact on consumers and the economy.

While acknowledging its negative effects, Moleshe said it was comforting knowing that the issue did not lie with turbines and generators but with the transformers.

“At least from a maintenance point of view, we can still rely on the units that are there," Moleshe said.

She said it was unfortunate this happened while 7,500 MW of generation capacity was out due to planned maintenance.

“We don't have sufficient reserve capacity to be able to securely meet everything. So if something goes wrong in some power station, and there are units that are down, and it's significant units, we do expect that will happen."

Moleshe said this happened in other countries as well with the only difference being that they have sufficient capacity for emergencies to be able to deal with such a situation.

Melusi Tshabalala, CEO of Mesama Energy, an independent power producing company,  said while Eskom is committed to ending load-shedding, the recent events suggest the road to the “complete end” of load-shedding is still long.

“Eskom is still under severe pressure and is operating within small margins of freedom. We find ourselves once again being rocked by power supply instability which will affect many businesses and [their] operations including lives of ordinary citizens. For those that can afford to invest in compliant back up and off-grid systems, this remains a critical area of focus," Tshabalala said.

Eskom group CEO Dan Marokane confirmed that the country was pushed into stage three load-shedding on Saturday due to multiple units having issues at the same time.

Khambule said Eskom's winter outlook will depended on the demands from the mining sector, which has some of the largest users of energy.

“The main thing that we were looking at in terms of winter is whether the key demand from mining is going to increase, and if it increases, it will place a much greater strain on the syste.,” he said.

“But if the demand stays the same, and there's more introduction of other sources of electricity outside the primary transmission one, we should at least be able to weather the storm. But we have to bear two things in mind — demand from the mining sector and actual plant performance. But generally, the plant performance has been quite good.”

Khambule said severe weather conditions, particularly heavy rainfall in provinces such as Gauteng and the North West, have driven up residential electricity consumption as people remain indoors and use more power than usual.

He said the current situation is an anomaly and may not persist unless mining demand rises sharply or Eskom's plant performance declines again.