Time and again we’ve been cajoled into believing that no matter how constrained the system, how bad the mechanical failures, there’s no danger of SA free-falling into a catastrophic collapse of the national electricity grid.
“The energy crisis is an existential threat to our economy and social fabric,” President Cyril Ramaphosa said at his state of the nation address in February. Those words ring true. One needs only look at the chaos that unfolded during the 2019 blackouts in Venezuela to appreciate how dire that would be.
Which is precisely why we now must stomach, begrudgingly, up to 11 hours and 30 minutes of stage 6 load-shedding over 24 hours in some parts of the country (Cape Town in this instance). The rolling power cuts artificially reduce demand preventing what could otherwise trigger a domino effect of power station trips plunging the country into an eventual grid collapse, civil unrest and crisis.
Which is why it was somewhat unnerving to watch the CEO and executives of Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) apologise profusely on Tuesday to citizens at a press conference for saddling them with objectionable load-shedding — after the collapse of their national grid, albeit briefly — in the early hours of Monday and a recovery expected later this week.
Botswana’s Morupule A and B power plants and a transmission line connecting the country to South Africa were temporarily affected by a transmission line “disturbance” the power utility said was under investigation.
Time and again we’ve been assured as a nation, over several years, that load-shedding would be a thing of the past.
BPC manager of technical services Tebogo Thakadu revealed at the briefing that Eskom, which had not supplied electricity to the country since April, intervened to supply additional megawatts for several hours (347MW at the evening peak on Monday) to assist in stabilising and restarting the grid.
At first blush the thought of Eskom — which has thumped SA citizens with stage 6 rolling blackouts since Sunday afternoon — diverting power elsewhere is akin to being the weaker opponent in a face-slapping contest on top of stage 6 humiliation.
But realistically, however distasteful level 6 is now, and potentially stage 8 looming in winter, one can only hope our neighbours will reciprocate — albeit with the limited electricity resources they have — should we land up in the same quandary and ask for help. Days, maybe weeks, is the estimated time it would take to restart the SA grid — facing much greater consumer demand from a number of power stations.
State-owned insurer the SA Special Risk Insurance Association (Sasria) has joined private insurers in preparing for a potential total collapse of the national electricity grid by informing its clients that should it occur, policyholders cannot claim for damages, sister publication Business Day reported on Sunday.
The JSE, hospitals, cities, provinces, retailers, homeowners (who can afford to) have scrambled to shield themselves from prolonged power outages. Many no longer believe the cajoling.
Time and again we’ve been assured as a nation, over several years, that load-shedding would be a thing of the past.
This winter our fate lies in the hands of experienced system operators keeping an eagle eye on the state of the grid. They will undoubtedly unleash more load-shedding pain if it means saving the grid from a total collapse.
The alternative is too ghastly to contemplate.
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