Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa might run into a number of hindrances as the government races against time to put into action a landmark ruling that it take reasonable steps to exempt all public health institutions, including hospitals and clinics, public schools and police stations, including satellite stations, from the impacts of load shedding by the end of January.
This is the view of some energy experts after the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, judgment on Friday following an application by various political, labour, and community organisations that hauled President Cyril Ramaphosa, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan, Ramokgopa and Eskom before the courts, accusing them of failing to detail government plans to end load shedding, among others.
The organisations argued that this was in violation of a number of human rights.
In his 66-page judgment, Judge Norman Davis found that the government had dismally failed the country and its people.
Judge Davis declared that the government’s failure to protect Eskom from criminal activity and state capture, which were manifested in the energy crisis and in load shedding, constituted breaches to protect and promote the Bill of Rights.
Weighing in on the judgment on Sunday, energy expert Lungile Mashele said: “The ruling is interesting, especially the minister found responsible – one wonders where he’ll get the power to prevent load shedding at certain facilities. While it can be agreed that load shedding should not affect hospitals, schools, etc, the practical application is a lot more difficult.
“The practical application is that any area on the same feeder as a hospital, clinic, school, police station, etc, will not be load-shed.”
Mashele said this was not practical and defeated the point of load shedding.
“The best bet is to make those facilities load shedding-proof by getting solar PV systems and generators.
“This is in part what drove the Chinese donations. However, the equipment donated is limited by its capacity to power up a teaching block, let alone a clinic.”
Energy activist Peter Becker added that the difficulty is that equipment is needed at a municipal level, which is not under the control of Eskom in some areas, so this may not be feasible across the country.
“They can increase load shedding in some areas but need equipment in places and need municipalities on board in some areas.
“What’s the consequence going to be? They just can’t do it.
“If we are short of electricity, we’re short of electricity, and we’re very short. Long-term reason is a lack of planning.
Second is the mistaken belief that the coal fleet can be fixed.”
Nuclear civil engineer Hügo Krüger said: “Technically, it is feasible they can say they’re not going to have load shedding in these areas, then people not on the list will have more load shedding.
Asking to put a dedicated line to each essential service, the list of essential services is going to get longer. I don’t know if it’s enforceable.”
He added that he believed load shedding could end within 18 months to three years, with “the right competent leadership and policy framework”.
“The energy sector is full of factions, not any one of them are honest, all selling a product they will tell you the upside not the downside. Fix 40GW of the fleet of coal-fired power plants, not apologise for it being a coal fleet.
“Coal is supplied domestically.
Establish a 20GW renewable programme with 4GW wind and solar awarded annually for five years. Competitive bidding with complete certainty, provided by the private sector. Allow Eskom to sell direct to its customers, to bypass the municipal middlemen,” Krüger said.
Speaking on the sidelines of the COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, Ramaphosa said the ruling spoke to what the government wanted to be done. The government had opposed the application by the organisations.
“We want our schools, we want our hospitals to have the requisite amount of energy. For us it’s a confirmation of our government’s programme.
“We did say in our court papers that while that is our strategic objective, the issue of energy is affecting all of society. There will be moments when we have load shedding affecting certain portions of society negatively but we are going to take steps to make sure that hospitals, schools and police stations are less adversely affected as we go on to address our energy challenges.”
Cape Times