Business and commerce in the Western Cape need to be informed well in advance of potential power shortages to prevent future loss, which is running at ”hundreds of millions of rands”, the Cape Regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry said on Wednesday.
”The major concern is obviously to be able to get notification well in advance … We cannot continue like this. It is impossible when the City of Cape Town is not able to clearly inform business when outages will occur,” said Colin Boyes, the chamber’s deputy director.
He was speaking ahead of a planned meeting between Eskom chief executive Thulani Gcabashe and Western Cape Premier Ebrahim Rasool to discuss the region’s ongoing energy crisis.
Boyes said business needs certainty and questioned why the city proposed electricity cuts of up to five hours, beyond the current two hours.
”To go beyond that [two hours] is totally unthinkable; you will destroy the whole business day,” said Boyes.
Meeting in the dark
Gcabashe experienced first-hand the sorts of frustrations Capetonians were having when a media briefing with Rasool was conducted in darkness after the provincial legislature’s lights went off.
The briefing was held after a ”robust” exchange between Gcabashe and the provincial Cabinet, who met to discuss outages that have increased in severity and occurrence since the Koeberg nuclear power station encountered problems in December.
”Right at the outset, I need to apologise to all the people of the Western Cape and all the areas that have been affected … As the chief executive of Eskom I take responsibility for this,” Gcabashe said.
He said the delay in restarting Koeberg and restoring power to the region by Tuesday evening, as was previously indicated, was because of safety considerations.
”We really want to put safety first. With a nuclear plant, after it has been off, once the reactor has been shut down there are very stringent steps that need to be followed in bringing it back [online].”
Koeberg has not been operating optimally since December, when one of two reactors malfunctioned. It is still inoperable. The second reactor is due to be refuelled in March.
Regulator
Gcabashe said the process requires the Nuclear Regulator to approve certain steps, particularly after the nuclear power station lost all power to the national grid over the weekend and had to rely on its diesel generators.
Koeberg should be ”synchronising” back on to the grid on Friday, with another 31 hours needed before full power is achieved.
An extra 1 000 megawatts will be provided next year when two gas-powered power stations have been completed.
Gcabashe appealed to consumers to conserve energy by disconnecting geysers, pool pumps and the likes, as well as by purchasing energy-saving light bulbs.
”Our view is that both from an environmental perspective, as well as a cost to the economy, we need to use electricity efficiently. We do not want a situation where we have to be investing in new power stations merely to service what is inefficient utilisation of electricity,” he said.
Rasool said he was disappointed that initial deadlines were not met in restoring electricity and called on Capetonians to ”byt vas [hold on]”.
”I can only say that I am disappointed that we were not to be able to meet the deadline last night [of restoring electricity], and to meet the expectations of the citizens of Cape Town that their sacrifices would be short-lived,” said Rasool.
Blame
The blackouts did not escape the attention of political parties, with the Democratic Alliance laying the blame at the mayor’s door and the Independent Democrats mooting a class action against Eskom.
The DA’s mayoral candidate, Helen Zille, said the mayor’s office has to take responsibility for the city’s failure to ensure the continuation of health services in the face of Eskom’s power cuts.
She said Groote Schuur hospital is being crippled by the effects of unpredictable power outages to the extent that the hospital is considering cancelling non-emergency surgery.
”This is completely unacceptable. Unpredictable power supply is bad enough for ordinary businesses, but is inexcusable for hospitals,” she said.
ID mayoral candidate Simon Grindrod said the ID is ”exploring the possibility” of launching a class-action legal suit to seek compensation from Eskom for losses suffered by Cape Town businesses.
”We are required to prove negligence to seek compensation and I believe that the inadequate maintenance of the electricity supply network on the part of Eskom constitutes just that,” said Grindrod. — Sapa