[imagesource: Armand Hough/African News Agency]

Every time an EskomSePush notification pops up on my phone, I fear the worst.

Years of load shedding behind us, and many more ahead, but there is always the fear that we can go from stage one to stage four at the drop of a hat, and next thing you’re eating a cold dinner in the dark.

For residents of Cape Town, though, the load shedding stages we experience are often one stage below what the rest of the country is experiencing.

Not always, but often enough.

I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, but if you want to know why this is the case, Cape Town executive mayor Dan Plato has issued a statement to clarify a few things.

This from Cape Town ETC, quoting Plato:

“Fortunately, through the generation of additional capacity using the City’s Steenbras Pumped Storage Plant and other management interventions, we are able to limit the impact to customers supplied by the city…

The City generates additional capacity to protect customers from one stage of load-shedding, where we are able to do so. While we are the only city in the country that can provide this extra relief to our residents, it is also a reality that National Government is limiting us from doing even more to alleviate our current sole reliance on Eskom.”

If the City of Cape Town had its way, it would institute further efforts to procure cleaner and cheaper and energy from Independent Power Producers (IPPs), thereby reducing the reliance on Eskom.

Essentially, when it comes to being one stage lower than the rest of the country, we have the Steenbras Pumped Storage Plant to thank.

Via The South African, here’s how the Steenbras scheme works:

Electricity generated during relatively low-cost off-peak periods is used to pump water from a lower to an upper storage reservoir.

During periods of peak demand, the water is released back to the lower reservoir, thereby generating electricity like a conventional hydroelectric power station.

Hydroelectricity is produced using the gravitational force of falling or flowing water to power an electricity generator.

The Steenbras scheme is equipped with small hydro generators, and each of the station’s four 45 000 kW generator units acts as a pump-motor in one mode and a turbine-generator in the other.

Sadly, the City of Cape Town’s efforts to further reduce the reliance on Eskom has been hit by legal setbacks, so we may have to settle for being one stage below the rest of the country for the time being.

[sources:capetownetc&southafrican]