(3 minutes read)
Part of the power-generating solar panels of a South African town in Rural Free State was shut down to comply with the national grid’s Eskom schedule of daily blackouts, leading to the wastage of precious energy
Part of the power-generating solar panels of a South African town in Rural Free State was shut down to comply with the national grid’s Eskom schedule of daily blackouts, leading to the wastage of precious energy.
Gugu Mokoena, General Manager of a private electricity distributor, Rural Free State, said that the partial closure of the solar panels has been at the instance of ESKOM, which insists on load shedding. This has led to businesses getting affected and loss of employment, complains the company official. This forces local residents and businesses to resort to power generation using diesel generators, which is expensive. Power cuts across the country last sometimes for upwards of 12 hours a day. During that time, the grid would be shut and power can be drawn only from the diesel power generating set installed within a factory or business unit, or household.
Among the businesses which are affected include small-time poultry farms which need continuous power for hatching eggs. It is reported that several such farms have lost thousands of chickens due to load shedding. Local residents and businesses started using locally produced energy from the solar power plant last February to escape from nationwide blackouts imposed by Eskom, which they cannot do now as per the directive from ESKOM.
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Affected parties urge both Eskom and NERSA (National Energy Regulator of South Africa, Ed.) to be lenient and allow households and businesses to draw power generated by the solar panels from the national grid. The main opposition party- the Democratic Alliance- accused Eskom of acting like a village bully in this case and asked the public utility to be more considerate and understand the problems of its customers.
