R300-million per day – Western Cape economy bleeds money during stage 4 load shedding

WESTERN CAPE NEWS - Eskom must urgently explain to the country what the plan is to address ongoing load shedding and breakdowns in its fleet, says Anton Bredell, the Western Cape Minister of Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning.

This comes after Eskom announced the implementation of Stage 4 load shedding until Friday morning due to a shortage of generation capacity.

Eskom stated that total breakdowns on its fleet of power stations is 14957 MW with a further 5301MW offline due to maintenance.

According to Western Cape Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, David Maynier it is estimated that in 2020 load shedding cost South Africa’s economy R500-million per stage, per day and the Western Cape’s economy R75-million per stage, per day.

“This means that this latest Stage 4 load shedding is estimated to cost our provincial economy a whopping R300-million per day. This is a devastating blow to businesses in the Western Cape, which are already hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions placed on the economy.”

Bredell says excuses are no longer good enough. “What is the plan to stop the blackouts killing the economy and if there is a plan, why is it not working? It is simply unacceptable that more than half of Eskom’s entire power station fleet is not working.

"It is a fact that things are only getting worse. In December 2019 Eskom implemented stage 6 load shedding. How many new power generators has been added to the grid since then?”

He says businesses and people and towns must be able to plan and cannot continue to be held to ransom. “In the Western Cape, national government-controlled rail services and harbour services are already collapsing at an alarming rate. On top of that we have the electricity crisis. This is catastrophic for the people on the ground yet the national government and the relevant cabinet ministers appear to be oblivious. If not for entities like the City of Cape Town managing their own small supply as optimally as possible, preventing stages of load shedding, things would be much worse.”

Western Cape Minister of Education, Debbie Schäfer says the situation is unacceptable and comes at a critical time for learners in the province.

"This is a total disgrace. Our learners have gone through so much with Covid-19, and now they have to worry about load shedding on top of trying to study for their matric exams.”

Bredell says the province has contingency measures in place should the situation escalate further and in the event of any emergencies cropping up during load shedding.

“The Western Cape Disaster Management Centre has over the years, made every effort to put contingencies in place to deal with emergency situations where they may occur during extended episodes of load shedding. The number to call in case of emergencies in the Western Cape is 112.”

Bredell urges the public and businesses to reduce energy consumption as far as possible in order to assist Eskom in stabilising the system as fast as possible.

David Maynier

Maynier says the provincial government is doing everything it can to build energy resilience in the Western Cape and support businesses to beat load shedding.

“That is why we launched the Municipal Energy Resilience Initiative, which includes a fund to support municipalities to prepare pioneering energy resilience projects. We have already signed MoUs with all 6 of the participating municipalities, which is a key first step in building a more energy resilient future in our province.”

Bredell has urged residents to always be prepared for the possibility of load shedding.

“The best way to deal with unexpected outages is to be as prepared as possible. We hope that load shedding will be minimised as far as possible but we also believe in being prepared. The provincial disaster management centre is monitoring the electricity situation on an ongoing basis and is prepared in the event of serious power challenges.”

For advice on reducing your energy consumption, click here.

Debbie Schafer