Load shedding: ‘Faceless people decide behind closed doors’

Despite legislative requirements for equity in the application of load shedding, there is no oversight to ensure the pain is spread evenly among South African electricity users.

When Eskom calls on local distributors – mostly municipalities – to lower their usage, it is in the hands of “the guy who flips the switch” without any oversight over the decisions taken by municipal officials about who to shed and who to exempt.

This is clear from the responses of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), which is required to ensure the implementation of load shedding rules, perform audits, provide a reporting system, consider and approve exemptions, and publish a list of exempted sites.

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The regulator says it has not done any audits nor received any applications for exemptions.

National standard to blame

Although load shedding has been part of the South African landscape since 2008, Nersa blames gaps in the load shedding rules as contained in the national standard NRS 048-9 that has been incorporated in the licence conditions of electricity distributors. The standard is currently being reviewed.

“Different licensees have different block time rotation and depending on the practically of the network, some customers might be more affected than others,” says Nersa.

“The only equity that can be measured is audit implementation of customers within the same licensee,” says Nersa.

It has however not done any audits within the same distribution area either.

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In the meantime, advertisements of properties for sale enjoying “no load shedding” abound. Anecdotal evidence suggests many areas never suffer rotational black-outs and Joburg’s City Power has announced plans to exempt all businesses in its distribution area from load shedding.

Imbalanced implementation

For every site that is exempted, other electricity users suffer increased load shedding to ensure that the demand is reduced in accordance with Eskom’s instructions.

The benefits to business and households to be spared are immeasurable. It increases the pace and value of property transactions and for businesses it means a much lower cost base than that of their competitors who must keep the generators running.

According to NRS 048-9 only “critical and essential loads” may be exempted.

Critical loads include passenger rail, plants provide water to power stations, plants providing drinking water, refineries, fuel pipelines, coal mines providing power stations, and electricity control centres.

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Essential loads are the minimum supply for critical safety, environmental and economical considerations and includes deep level mines, hospitals providing life support, sewerage systems, correctional centres, refineries and national key points that rely on electricity for the core functions, as well as potable water systems.

Administrative decision taken

These institutions are required to provide their own back-up power systems and if they cannot be isolated from other electricity users by providing dedicated electricity lines to their sites, they may not be excluded from load shedding.

Mark Surgeon, VF+ councilor in the City of Tshwane says in that metro who will be exempted is “a purely administrative decision” taken when there is an emergency, for example, when a specific substation is vulnerable and for back-up power at hospitals and airports.  It does not require council approval either.

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Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) CEO Wayne Duvenage says it is clear that load shedding is not being implemented equitably.

“The person who flips the switch decides and can exclude his own neighbourhood if he wants to,” says Duvenage.

He says it is surprising that after years of load shedding there is still no oversight to ensure that some are not overburdened, compared with others.

“It should be audited and published on Nersa’s website,” he says.

Risk of corruption to keep lights on

Duvenage says with so much at stake, the potential for corruption to be spared load shedding is huge.

“Nersa is the regulator who must look after the interests of consumers, but it doesn’t do that,” he says.

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MC Botha, attorney and managing director of MC Botha Incorporated, says provided Nersa properly incorporated the load shedding rules they are legally binding. Nevertheless, it looks as if Nersa has abdicated its responsibility to monitor and enforce it.

That, Botha says, leaves a vacuum and electricity users are left at the mercy of officials of municipal distributors as the first gatekeepers regarding load shedding schedules and exemptions with wide discretion.

“It is very concerning, given the dysfunctional state of a large number of municipalities,” says Botha.

Infringing on rights

Chris Yelland, managing director of EE Business Intelligence says it is very surprising that Nersa is failing in its oversight role on the implementation of load shedding and load curtailment, which is being conducted in an arbitrary and discriminatory way that infringes on the constitutional rights of individual and corporate citizens of this country.

“The principles are clear that load shedding must be implemented equitably with as few exemptions as possible. But it has also become clear that some customers in municipal areas have limited or no load shedding, while Eskom’s key industrial customers (KICs) are subjected to very limited load curtailment,” Yelland said.

“To compensate for this, excessive and discriminatory load shedding is applied for the majority of customers in South Africa,” he says.

“We need transparency, because it is untenable that the decisions about who gets off lightly from load shedding and load curtailment are left at the discretion of faceless Eskom and municipal officials, operating behind closed doors, without independent regulatory oversight.”