On Monday Eskom cut 6000 megawatts from its capacity due to a technical difficulty with its new power station, Medupi.
The SOE has never cut this much power before and mining companies were forced to close on Monday due to the stage 6 crisis. Two mining companies, Impala Platinum and Harmony Gold have also stopped their night shifts due to power shortages. According to Business Day, the mining sector in South Africa contributes R30 billion to the South African government through royalties and taxes and is also responsible for employing 450 000 people.
Impala Platinum spokesperson Johan Theron said: “It’s very serious. We are not able to produce. What we lose today we can never catch up. If you lose a production shift it’s gone for good.” This is a serious loss considering companies must pay salaries even if they are losing production.
Eskom has cited flooding and rainy weather (wet coal) and technical problems at other coal-burning plants as exacerbating the situation. Although the country is now back to stage 4 load shedding (meaning power systems need to shed 4000 megawatts because demand exceeds supply), some municipalities have issued provisional load shedding schedules that cover stage 8 load shedding.
Eskom’s Chief Operating Officer, Jan Oberholzer, has stated that Monday’s circumstances were extreme due to flooding. He said that he hoped South Africa would never reach stage 8 but warned that generating plants remain unpredictable and unreliable. Spokesperson Dikatso Mothae asserted that stage 6 was a necessary “controlled way” to avoid complete black-out.
The event has sparked concern over the potentially disastrous economic repercussions load shedding could cause for South Africa.