Melanie Gosling
BUSINESSES are scrambling to buy generators as the cost of load shedding starts to bite and the reality that it will be around for a while sinks in.
Generator suppliers say they are battling to keep up with demand, and a local supplier having to wait up to three weeks for customs to clear stock is exacerbating the problem.
While the cost of large generators is high – between R40 million and R60m to power a city shopping centre and R100m to power a large factory – companies are having to fork out the money to keep their doors open.
Yesterday, Eskom scaled up its load shedding to “stage two”, which allows the utility to cut power of up to 2 000MW. It said the electricity supply was “extremely constrained” and would remain so for the rest of summer.
It said the dam levels at its pumped storage schemes, which used water to generate power, were low as it had been unable to pump the water back to full capacity at the weekend. The reason was because it had to use the pumped storage electricity at the weekend to meet demand.
“Ordinarily, the weekends are used to pump our dam levels to maximum capacity in preparation for the forecasted increased demand in electricity during the week,” the power utility said yesterday.
Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Janine Myburgh said yesterday one of the major problems was that the load shedding was unpredictable.
“If the cuts are stage one, you can plan, but it can go to stage two with a different schedule in two hours and you can’t predict when it will happen. Everyone is affected, from bakeries and plastic manufacturers to legal firms and small companies. If you’re a baker with 1 000 loaves, do you put them in the ovens or not?” Myburgh said.
The power cut costs included loss of production or sales, plus having to pay staff overtime to catch up when the lights came back on. The chamber had not yet quantified the losses.
“A local plastics company said it takes days to clean their equipment if the power goes off, and that is all lost production time. One plastics factory told me: ‘This could force us to close our doors and we’ve got 400 employees’. It is undermining business confidence. New investment depends on confidence.”
Myburgh said Eskom and the government had known for a long time that electricity demand would outstrip supply. “It’s not as if it’s a surprise. It’s because of bad planning.”
Pat Saunders, from a company that supplies generators, said yesterday some were sold out before they arrived. “Some shipments are landed in Durban, railed up to Joburg and are held for up to three weeks. Customs picks out what they want to inspect and then leaves them there. Millions of rand lying around waiting. I had trucks standing by in the Joburg warehouse, but they had to go. Customers get frustrated because we ask people for a 20 percent deposit,” Saunders said.
He said all generator suppliers he knew of were “going flat out” to meet demand. The small sets, between 20 to 30 kilovolt amps (kVa), were selling fast.
His company had many calls from small offices and households wanting 5 to 10kVa, but it did not cater for small requirements. “We deal with larger factories, hospitals, where generators can cost up to R100m.”
Sars said it would need more time to comment on the custom delays.