Warning about the impending tragedy – load shedding will only worsen

The designation of a catastrophe over South Africa’s energy issue would not help bring additional power production online swiftly or decrease load-shedding anytime soon.

According to Matthew Cruise, Hohm Energy’s head of business intelligence, in reaction to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2023 state of the nation speech on Thursday.

While maintaining the previous plan to repair load-shedding, Ramaphosa also stated that his administration has labelled South Africa’s energy problem a catastrophe owing to the severity of load-shedding in recent months.

Cruise joins a growing chorus of critics, including the Democratic Alliance, Solidarity, and energy expert Chris Yelland, who feel that declaring a state of emergency is not the best approach to address the energy situation.

Opponents of the state of disaster are concerned that politically connected persons may misuse money to get items and services that will not require Parliamentary monitoring or the proper procedure that is generally followed in such efforts.

This worry stems from what occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic’s state of crisis.

According to the Auditor-report, General’s about half a trillion rand was stolen through exorbitant overpayments for personal protective equipment and 30,000 relief grant payments that are currently being investigated.

Measures done under the state of disaster made PPE purchase and relief grant disbursements possible.

“I have my concerns about this step, and previously voiced concerns that it won’t do much in terms of actually bringing new generation capacity onto the grid, which is what’s primarily needed in order to meet our electricity demand,” Cruise said.

“Do we know with confidence that the money that flowed from it [a national disaster declaration] was well spent?”

“We know that R500 billion has been investigated for misappropriation or disappearance as a result, so I am concerned about the efficacy of declaring a national disaster. ”

Cruise is also sceptical of Ramaphosa’s timescale for fixing the energy situation.

During his speech, the president stated that Eskom will add more power capacity to the grid within six months.

Ramaphosa also stated that the 4,000MW to 6,000MW capacity gap that is causing load-shedding would be filled over the next 12-18 months.

It remains to be seen if these aims can be accomplished, according to Cruise.

According to him, there will be no reduction in load-shedding in 2023.

Instead, Cruise claims that load-shedding would be 50% more in 2023 than it was last year.

The year 2022 was the worst load-shedding year on record, with almost 200 days of power outages.

Chris Yelland, another energy expert, previously told MyBroadband that the best-case scenario for load-shedding in 2023 would be the same as last year.

He anticipated that stage 3 load-shedding will be the most prevalent over the year, but warned that it may be worse.

This was premised on Eskom’s producing fleet continuing to see a fall in its Energy Availability Factor (EAF), which has hit record weekly lows in 2023.

A bit of good news: once it happens, Cruise suggests that the 12-18 month timeline is not coincidence, since South Africa’s next national election is projected to take place by then.

He was enthusiastic by Ramaphosa’s proposal to assist families and companies in acquiring rooftop solar.

“One of the quickest ways to get power onto the grid is by incentivising the mass public to get solar installations,” he said.

However, Cruise stated that the administration earlier introduced the proposal in July 2022, so it would be a question of “wait and see” to see when it will be enacted.

Ramaphosa stated that finance minister Enoch Godongwana will give additional information regarding a solar tax credit for enterprises and home assistance at his 2023 budget address on February 22.

According to Cruise, the first consequence of these steps would most likely be that individuals will endure less load-shedding, but rotating power interruptions will continue.