Load shedding makes winter colder for S. Africans

A cold front is sweeping South Africa, but this time South Africans will feel even colder without heating due to load shedding.

Despite pledge to refrain from load shedding during the winter, the national electricity utility Eskom announced on Sunday that it has to resort to load shedding again due to a shortage of generation capacity.

Stage-one load shedding will be implemented from 17:00 until 22: 00 Sunday evening local time, the parastatal said.

This will mean that many South Africans will have to spend the cold evening without heating.

The load shedding "is due to a shortage of generation capacity resulting from technical faults at some of our units", Eskom said.

"As we are currently experiencing cold weather conditions across the country, we urge electricity users to consider energy efficient ways of keeping warm," Eskom said.

Since November last year, South Africans have been subjected to constant rolling blackouts due to a shortage of electricity generation resulting from poor maintenance at Eskom power stations. But over the past few days, there had been no load shedding, giving South Africans some relief that they could keep themselves warm during the winter.

"This proves to be a fantasy," said Luis Rupus, a 67-year-old resident in Cape Town. "No one will trust Eskom anymore," he said.

The utility has three stages for load shedding. Stage one allows for up to 1000MW of the national load to be shed once a day. If the pressure grows, stage two for up to 2000MW or stage three for up to 4000MW would be shed. At stage two, power goes off twice a day, while at stage three, electricity could be cut two or three times a day.

Eskom implements load shedding as a last resort to protect the national system from a total blackout which would have significant impact on the economic development of South Africa.

On Saturday, international rating agency Fitch affirmed the negative outlook for South Africa, citing power outages as one of the factors that cause concern.

Fitch said keeps South Africa's long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings at 'BBB' and 'BBB+' respectively.

Fitch said key drivers for the ratings decision included weak economic growth potential on the back of electricity supply constraints and external financing vulnerabilities.

The issues raised by Fitch are getting the government's attention at the highest level, the National Treasury said.

"Government recognizes that the country's economic growth performance needs to be higher in order to address the country's challenges. Resolving the energy challenge is a priority," said the Treasury. Endi