South Africa’s major business and industry bodies are concerned about the increasingly erratic Eskom electricity supply. At the same time, they are putting in place contingency plans to head off the resulting risks.
During an interview, Energy Intensive User Group of Southern Africa (EUIG) chief executive Fanele Mondi told Sunday World that Eskom’s loadshedding was very disruptive for the association’s members. He said Eskom’s rolling blackouts were devastating for companies with high energy requirements and put the national grid at risk.
Mondi said EUIG members planned to invest in over 4,000 megawatts in energy production generated from solar and wind over the next four to five years. The EUIG has 27 major corporate members who account for over 40% of local energy consumption and collectively contribute to 22% of the local gross domestic product.
The Minerals Council of South Africa said in a statement on Friday it estimated the local private sector had a total pipeline of nine gigawatts of energy projects using solar, wind, gas and battery storage.
“By expediting these projects and reducing the industry’s reliance on Eskom, the power utility will secure the space it needs to undertake critical maintenance and refurbishment of its power plants. The mining industry accounts for about 7.5GW of these projects at the cost of over R150-billion,” the mining industry association said.
A Telkom spokesperson wrote in an email that the company had instituted business continuity plans to mitigate the severe effects of prolonged loadshedding. “We have invested in alternative energy for most of our sites, including using standby generators.”
However, the sustained higher stages of loadshedding significantly impacted Telkom’s costs.
“Recharge cycles for alternative power sources being significantly lower and operating costs soaring on inputs such as diesel and the additional man hours to keep sites operational,” the spokesperson said.
“The risk of depleting battery back-up remains the longer we are in stage five and six loadshedding. If the batteries do not get enough time to recharge, customers will experience poor connectivity,” Telkom said.
From November 2022, Telkom has burned over 4-million litres of diesel to keep network sites online.
Vodacom chief executive Shameel Joosub told Business Day in December the power crisis threatened the local communication services’ security and availability. In addition, the extra spending to deal with the power cuts cost telecommunications companies, and that expenditure reduces network expansion and service quality.
MTN Group chief executive Ralph Mupita told Business Day telecommunications networks would not manage to deliver consistent availability with persistent six- to eight-stage load shedding. MTN uses over 400,000 litres of fuel monthly to keep its generators operational at over 9,000 network sites.
An Absa spokesperson wrote in an email the bank had made every effort to ensure minimal customer impact. “The power supply at most of our branches and branch ATMs is backed up by alternative power sources to mitigate this risk,” the spokesperson said.
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