President Cyril Ramaphosa has lamented the impact of intensified power cuts on business confidence in South Africa, saying that solving the electricity crisis was necessary to realise the potential of the economy.
Eskom yesterday reduced the intensity of load shedding to Stage 5 as several units were returned to service even though a generating unit at Duvha was taken down due to a boiler tube leak.
This followed a heightened level of load shedding to Stage 6 on Sunday as Eskom had to shed 6 000MW from the grid following the collapse of a number of generation units.
The situation was made worse by the depletion of emergency generation reserves such as pumped storage and diesel turbines and the need for these to be replenished.
Ramaphosa yesterday said the first and foremost thing to be done to make the economy more competitive, more efficient and more attractive to both international and local companies was to overcome the electricity crisis.
It was not clear whether Ramaphosa had landed back in South Africa by yesterday afternoon after cutting his international trip short as Deputy President David Mabuza was still Acting President for the better part of the day.
Ramaphosa held an urgent virtual meeting with ministers and officials on Sunday on the reasons for the current load shedding and the steps being taken to reduce its severity and frequency in the coming days and weeks.
“The severe load shedding of the last few days has reminded us how unstable our ageing power stations are. It has given greater urgency to the measures we announced two months ago to stabilise our electricity supply,” Ramaphosa said.
“Solving the electricity crisis is necessary if we are to realise the potential of our economy.”
The SA Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Monday said the ramped-up power cuts would severely impact on investor confidence as business activity grounds to a halt.
Business confidence has already declined in the third quarter as the majority of businesses were dissatisfied with prevailing business conditions as the Stage 6 load shedding implemented at the beginning of July exacerbated pressure from rising interest rates and lower real disposable incomes.
Eskom on Monday announced some of the measures it is taking in its power purchase program to secure 1 000MW in a bid to bolster constrained generation capacity.
Absa Research said while Eskom has reduced the intensity of power cuts slightly, Stage 5 still remained at a worryingly high level of electricity rationing, with rotational power cuts to remove 5000MW of load from the grid.
“The latest bout of intense load shedding is likely to have weighed on economic activity. Eskom is seemingly making good progress on returning the various tripped units to service, but load shedding is likely to persist for the remainder of the week as the utility works to replenish its emergency reserves of water and diesel,” it said.
Meanwhile, Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan yesterday said he “really regretted” the way in which energy provision was coming from Eskom as it was upsetting both the economy and households.
Gordhan said Eskom was procuring extra megawatts and improving the skilled personnel, but fixing the generation side of the business was the part that required a lot more attention on the part of the management and board in particular.
“But like the South African public, we in the government also find the number of units that have broken down since the 4th of September highly unacceptable,” Gordhan said.
“We have mobilised the full resources of our teams together with Eskom to address this immediate challenge of load shedding.
“We are alive to the fact that load shedding impacts on households, businesses and disrupts daily lives of South Africans. All efforts are directed toward returning megawatts lost due to unplanned breakdowns and outages.”
BUSINESS REPORT