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Sheesh, but this 6AM to 8:30AM load shedding slot is not a vibe.

There goes the morning cup of coffee and any hope of a warm brekkie before the sun rises.

My EskomSePush schedule shows I’m also going down from 2PM until 4:30PM and again from 10PM past midnight. At least we’re only on stage four here in Cape Town. If I was on stage six tomorrow, I would be looking at no power from 10AM to 2:30PM, as well as a morning and nighttime stint.

Just the four-and-a-half hours slap bang in the middle of the day. No worries. Cape Town stops working at 3PM on a Friday, anyway, so get stuck in those first two hours.

Helen Zille approves of the city’s efforts:

pic.twitter.com/MsNF3HATrW

— Helen Zille (@helenzille) June 29, 2022

Crazy that we’re celebrating being ‘only’ on stage four. This is the new(ish) normal, so to speak. Get used to it.

We’ve written in the past about why Cape Town is often one load shedding stage lower than the rest of the country but it’s worth revisiting in light of recent events.

For that, we head to The Daily Maverick and give thanks to the Steenbras Hydro Pump Station:

The 180MW Steenbras Hydro Pump Station (SHPS) is a pumped storage scheme, which consists of four turbines that are used to generate electricity.

The City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Beverley van Reenen, explained that, during peak electricity demand, the pump station channels water from the upper Steenbras reservoir to the lower reservoir through the turbine generator, to create electricity.

“When electricity usage is low — usually between 11pm and 7am — the turbines pump the water back to the upper Steenbras reservoir to be reused the next day. In this way, SHPS operates like a battery. The amount of electricity that it can generate in one day is limited by the capacity of the lower reservoir,” said Van Reenen.

Pumping that water still relies on power from Eskom and van Reenen says the city has been looking at storage facilities for independent generation additions.

Van Reenen popped by the pump station over the weekend to give us a look inside:

We’re at the Steenbras Pumped Hydro Storage Scheme today. As soon as #Eskom announced stage 4 load shedding, our hard working @CityofCT electricity team fired up the units to protect our clients from at least one stage of load shedding. #LoadShedding pic.twitter.com/ZjezrKLeKa

— Cllr Beverley van Reenen (@vReenenBeverley) June 24, 2022

Side note – the DA is talking about getting the job done with regards to the pump station. It was actually built in the early 20th century, with hydroelectric facilities added in the 1970s.

But hey, it has been well-maintained, unlike infrastructure across the country, so let’s just celebrate our wins where we can get them.

City of Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said exactly this yesterday, adding that Steenbras is “humming along like a well-oiled machine, and that really is the secret”.

To ensure that the city is able to protect its customers from the current Stage 6 load shedding, [SHPS] also garners energy from the gas turbines during the evening peaks (between 5pm and 8pm) to bolster the capacity of the Steenbras-generated reserves, Van Reenen explained…

At this stage, the City of Cape Town is capping its customers at Stage 4 load shedding.

Should South Africa venture deeper into the dwang and go beyond stage six, Cape Town may not be able to keep the city on stage four.

At present, Cape Town is the only municipality in the entire country with a hydroelectric pump scheme that can be used to mitigate load shedding.

Yet more stunning insight from a government that has now overseen load shedding since April 2008.

Hill-Lewis has spoken before about getting off Eskom’s grid entirely and that’s still very much the plan. Meanwhile, Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan is imploring the government to reduce the bureaucratic red tape to get more power onto the grid urgently.

In fact, reports Fin24, he said he’s after “scrapping the damn red tape”:

While energy experts and the DA have advanced emergency plans and proposals, the government is yet to respond to the gravity of the electricity supply crisis. It has stuck to the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) of 2019 as the solution to the supply shortfall…

At least three plans to end load shedding have been suggested from outside of government. All argue that the government’s business-as-usual path will take too long and be too slow to impact the crisis. The IRP also does not consider that Eskom’s performance is getting progressively worse. Instead, it assumes that Eskom generation capacity will improve.

That’s how you know, with absolute certainty, that the IRP is clueless.

In response to what it says is “a national emergency”, the DA has called for Eskom to be declared a state of disaster:

The party’s plan included: accelerating projects already in the pipeline, removing the regulatory burden making it difficult for industry and households to generate their own energy, compelling Nersa to speed up its regulatory processes to register sub-100MW projects and a regulatory moratorium that would allow provinces and municipalities to procure their own electricity supply.

Whatever it takes to keep the lights on, people.

Aside from the ruinous effect on our economy and quality of life, it’s genuinely embarrassing going without power for up to half of the day.

[sources:dailymav&fin24]