News in South Africa 16th January:
1. Ramaphosa stays home for power crisis:
President Cyril Ramaphosa has cancelled his visit to Switzerland to urgently attend to the energy crisis back home.
Ramaphosa was scheduled to travel to Davos for the World Economic Forum summit, an annual meeting of world leaders, business and civil society which gets underway from Monday until Friday.
The president was meant to promote South Africa as an investment destination, a position many citizens believe we are drifting away from thanks to the challenges currently facing the country.
South Africa has officially been experiencing rolling power cuts every single day of the week since the start of the year.
The strain on the power system has forced Eskom to ramp up power cuts to stage 6 indefinitely.
The Presidency said that Ramaphosa was currently convening a meeting with leaders of political parties represented in Parliament, the national energy crisis committee and the board of Eskom.
2. Load shedding causing water shortages:
The City of Cape Town has urged residents to use less water during prolonged stages of load shedding to prevent water supply limitations in higher-lying areas.
The City issued the warning following the move to stage six load shedding, which impacts water supply operations in Cape Town, notably in higher-lying areas where water needs to be pumped to get to properties.
“Residents across the city need to help by using less water immediately so we can reduce our collective water use to 850 million litres per day,” the City said in a statement.
As a precautionary measure, the City’s Water and Sanitation Directorate urged residents to use less water.
“This will help maintain the supply during prolonged high stages of load shedding, which is affecting water supply operations.”
High-lying or mountainous areas which rely on water-pumping stations are at more immediate risk of low or no water pressure during high stages of load-shedding.
Affected areas are:
– Somerset West region
– De Novo and Kraaifontein, including Belmont Park, Eikendal and Scottsville
– the far south region, from Simon’s Town to Murdock Valley
– Hout Bay
Acting mayoral committee member for Water and Sanitation Siseko Mbandezi said that the challenge was that reservoirs could not fill up fast enough because of prolonged periods of load shedding.
3. Is Eskom actually doing maintenance?:
As the country reels under four days of constant Stage 6 load shedding (and counting), Eskom has been resolute in following its planned maintenance schedule, even though this removes additional generation capacity from service.
On Wednesday, it had 5 739MW of capacity offline due to maintenance when Stage 6 kicked in “until further notice”. It ran higher-than-normal maintenance throughout the festive period, with this peaking in the final week of the year at 17% of its installed capacity – equal to about 8 000MW.
While it is tempting to argue that maintenance ought to be deferred so that coal units can be run (even at reduced capacity) to keep the lights on, Eskom executives argue that this strategy will only create even bigger problems down the line.
It did however seem to – through all available coal units– in an effort to avoid load shedding on Christmas Day, as this article explains.
Last year, Eskom shared charts that show it cut overall maintenance of its coal fleet dramatically between 2016 and 2018.
Plan vs progress
The figures however don’t lie …
In its last financial year (to 31 March 2022), Eskom completed 47 of the 84 outages under its reliability maintenance recovery programme. A further seven were being executed at year-end, and it executed an additional 47 short-term outages. One was cancelled and 29 deferred to this financial year due to “funding and capacity constraints as well as execution challenges”.
In the current financial year it had, by the end of September, completed 16 and was busy executing 13 of its 79 outages under the programme. Seven were cancelled, 16 were deferred to within the fiscal, eight to FY2024, and 19 were remaining.
To turn around performance of its coal fleet, these numbers simply have to improve on those from prior years. We will know by May how well it has fared against its plan.
Regardless, because any gains from improved levels and quality of maintenance will only be seen in the years ahead, De Ruyter won’t be around to take the credit.
Perhaps the ‘new’ minister will.
4. Fast food shortages due to load shedding:
Some of South Africa’s favourite fast-food chains are struggling with stock and being forced to close as load shedding hampers their operations.
In December last year, KFC announced that load shedding had impacted the supply of some essential menu items. The company is not alone in its struggle, with Nando’s also falling victim.
Mike Cathie, the CEO of Nando’s South Africa, told the Sunday Times that the intensifying blackouts are leading to a supply crunch on chicken – threatening the company’s fresh food supply.
He said that while none of its restaurants have closed due to chicken shortages, it continues to be tough to manage supply across its national footprint with seemingly nonstop load-shedding.
“As long as load-shedding remains, so do the significant threat to the fresh food supply. We can expect to have a continued tough year ahead, but we are confident we have adequate plans and contingencies in place,” said the CEO to the Sunday Times.
Astral Foods, the country’s largest poultry producer that supplies restaurants such as KFC, Nando’s and Spur, said that power cuts make it increasingly difficult to do business.
The company’s latest ESG Summary Report for the year ended 30 September 2022 reported a direct loss of R126 million due to the power cuts.
According to the City Press, multiple farming industry representatives have approached the government to push back against load shedding as it limits food security across the country.
On 13 January, stakeholders from the agricultural sector held a meeting with Thoko Didiza, the agriculture minister. The members said that irrigation systems, livestock maintenance, and temperature regulation in chicken coops are all hindered by consistent load shedding.
The CEO of Agri SA, Christo van der Rheede, told the City Press that the future of the country’s food security remains unclear: “We stood as a sector and made the minister aware of the seriousness of the electricity problem. For example, the chicken farmers expressed fear that they wouldn’t be able to slaughter enough, which would lead to shortages.”
5. Courts go virtual due to power outages:
Deputy Judge President of the Gauteng High Court Roland Sutherland directs most court hearings online.
He blames the Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ) and the department of public works as they have been unable to procure a reliable generator for the courts.
Criminal cases, however, have been paused, as in-person hearings are the only option.
All information sourced from articles posted by: EWN, News24, Moneyweb, BusinessTech, and TimesLive.
