It’s not completely clear to me why Eskom has stopped scheduled load-shedding at this time. I’m not convinced that the simplistic statement that the country is being rewarded for having saved the required ten percent is entirely true. The move may have more to do with the fact that the damage to infrastructure, primarily the switching gear which is not intended to be switched on and off on a regular basis, has been greater than anticipated. Perhaps the pressure on the economy at a difficult time has also been influential. Perhaps it had also become clear that when the electricity was on, industries and residents made up for the power losses that they had suffered during the outages.

What is clear, however, is that this is no time for complacency. While we may be free of the frustrations of load-shedding - for all time, one hopes - we are not free of the electricity crisis and the only way to avert it in both the short and long terms is to change our mindsets.

We may begin by asking ourselves what our personal reaction to the situation is. Are we angry that Eskom and the government between them have allowed a crisis to develop as a result of poor management? Do we feel that Eskom is not up to managing the situation? Are we confused by messages from the utility that have been decidedly mixed at times? Do we feel that as paying consumers we have a right to use as much electricity as we like?

I suggest that all of these responses, together with a number of others, are unproductive. The mistakes have been made and no amount of criticism will ensure their reversal. There is no point on insisting on some right as customer when the supplier simply lacks the product to deliver. We must accept that any increase in the capacity to provide power will take years to accomplish and quite the worst thing we can do at this time is to dismiss the whole thing as someone else’s problem.

So, as far as this period of ‘moratorium’ is concerned, we should all be preparing for the alternative to load-shedding which is rationing. This will be the initiative of the government rather than Eskom and will have the power of the law to enable its implementation. At this time, exactly what is being planned is shrouded in some mystery, but it seems that a ration will be fixed for each category of energy users. Those who exceed the set ration, will pay a heavy penalty through a punitive tariff. In Brazil, when it was necessary to have similar rationing, those who exceeded the ration on three occasions were summarily cut off from the power supply.

This method is surely far more acceptable than load-shedding. In the first place, those who make the effort to save energy will escape sanction, a sanction that load-shedding distributed across the board whether it was deserved or not. Several of our local manufacturers complained that they had responded to Eskom’s call and voluntarily set about effecting savings that reached the ten percent level which, they had been told, would allow them to escape load-shedding. But in the event, this was impossible, and they had to suffer the outages with every other consumer in the area. Secondly, each consumer will have a choice, rather than being subject to a decision of the municipality or Eskom itself. Either the energy can be saved, or the punitive tariff paid. There is no doubt that after a time, if not initially, the purse will prevail, even if common sense does not.

Andrew Layman: PCB CEO

This article appeared in the Public Eye on the 8 May 2008