Pretoria - Energy expert Clyde Mallinson believes the energy crisis in South Africa, which has seen Eskom implement the dreaded Stage 6 load shedding again, has been a disaster waiting to happen.
“It’s very sad and it has been coming for a long time now. It’s really just cumulative. Who would ever thought that we would be more familiar with the names of our power stations than our soccer players. They (power stations) roll off one’s tongue now. It is an accident that has been waiting to happen, and it is starting to unfold now. It is happening right now, in real time,” Mallinson told broadcaster Newzroom Afrika.
“You can’t catch up time if you have run out of it. I’m afraid we are very, very close to having run out of time. We are moving from preventing load shedding, to mitigating against load shedding, while we try and fix that.
“We are in Imtiaz Sooliman territory now, if you know what I mean. It is not just can we fix this, it is can we endure it while we are fixing it,” he said.
Dr Sooliman is a leading humanitarian worker, who is also the director and visionary of Gift of the Givers, a South African non-governmental organisation.
On Wednesday, Eskom requested the public to exercise patience and tolerance over what they describe as a “difficult period.”
The power utility said load shedding was implemented due to a high number of breakdowns and the requirement to preserve the remaining emergency generation reserves while creating space to replenish the dam levels at the pumped storage schemes.
South Africans are currently enduring Stage 6 load shedding from noon on Wednesday.
Eskom said South Africa would be plunged into the Stage 6 load shedding blackouts until further notice.
“This is due to a high number of breakdowns since midnight, as well as the requirement to strictly preserve the remaining emergency generation reserves,” said Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Matshantsha.
The load shedding monitoring app, EskomSePush and PowerAlert.co.za has calculated South Africa has endured over 3 214 hours or 143 days of load shedding in 2022 alone.
This is the highest levels of load shedding the country has ever endured.
IOL