Johannesburg - The ANC has admitted again that the government has not moved at speed in generating sufficient electricity capacity to avert the ongoing crisis of rolling blackouts.
“Capacity is overloaded as a result of more people being connected… That is putting a strain on electricity (supply). That is an acknowledgement that we should have moved at speed,” ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe said on Wednesday during a post-national executive committee lekgotla in Joburg.
Mantashe’s comments came as the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry expressed concern that the sudden jump between different power cut stages was making it difficult for businesses to plan ahead, and that this was undermining productivity.
“We have had two days where stage 1 blackouts suddenly became stage 2 blackouts,” the chamber’s president, Janine Myburgh, said.
“We have also had cases where scheduled load shedding was not applied. It would be better if outages were more predictable, so that commerce and industry could work around them.”
Eskom announced this week it was on a power alert and implemented stage 2 rolling power cuts to help bolster power supply for the rest of the week.
It said the system would continue to be under severe pressure for the rest of the week, and that the risk of rolling blackouts would remain medium to high.
Mantashe said the lekgotla had identified the energy shortfalls as a “binding constraint” to improved economic growth and development.
“With more (households) now having electricity and the economy continuing to grow, there hasn’t been sufficient development of generation capacity,” he said, calling for urgent action to tackle the crisis.
“Urgent and effective interventions are required in this regard. The Kusile, Medupi and Ingula power stations must be brought speedily onto the generation stream. There must be concerted effort to also connect renewables onto the main grid.”
Mantashe added that the government had been tasked to come up with a concrete programme to accelerate the nuclear-energy programme.
“Priority must be given to projects that can bring energy into the grid within the next 18 to 24 months,” he said.
The Star