The Democratic Alliance (DA) has accused the African National Congress (ANC) of failing to curb load shedding as the electricity crisis continues.
The DA added that the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa) publication of Stage 16 draft load shedding protocols supports their claim.
In a statement released on Monday, DA Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Kevin Mileham said: “The publication of Stage 16 draft load shedding protocols is the clearest admission yet by the ANC government that they have failed to solve the load shedding crisis,” adding that load shedding will only be lessened “through the liberalisation of the electricity market“.
Mileham said the publication of the Stage 16 protocols is contrary to what President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said about being on course to end load shedding by 2024, saying it’s an “acknowledgement that half of South Africa’s generation capacity could be wiped off at a moment’s notice”.
South Africans are already up in arms about the constant load shedding, which continues to disrupt lives and livelihoods.
Many take issue with electricity price hikes, despite load shedding still happening, so the question on everyone’s lips is, “What are we paying for then?”
What is stage 16 load shedding and what would it entail?
Members of the public and other stakeholders have been invited to access the proposals, officially known as NRS 048-9 Edition 3, on the website and are free to comment on them until September 22.
Nersa’s proposals would see the system operator allowed to insist that power distributors drop their demand by between 5% and 80%, depending on the declared load shedding stage.
Each stage would reflect increments of 5% versus the demand, meaning that Stage 1 would cut off enough users to compensate for 5% of total demand, and Stage 16 would cut off enough users to compensate for 80%.
Under the current system, Stage 1 of load shedding is equal to a 1,000 MW demand reduction, regardless of the total load at the time of its implementation, Stage 2 allows for up to a 2,000 MW demand reduction; Stage 3 permits up to 3,000 MW; and so on.
If (and this is a big if), Stage 16 load shedding were to be implemented, there would be 24 hours of rolling blackouts occurring in a 32-hour period.
It is worth noting that it is a draft protocol, therefore, it does not mean we will get it.
After all consultation processes have finished, the document will be approved for implementation as the NRS 048-9 Code of Practice Edition 3.
This effectively means it would replace the current NRS 048-9 Code of Practice Edition 2, which regulates “current load shedding or load reduction practices, system restoration practices and critical load and essential load requirements under power system emergencies“.
