Exempting schools from load shedding during exams tricky: Ramokgopa

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The idea is exempting schools from load shedding during the examination period may not be possible. This is according to Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

Ramokgopa gave his weekly energy action plan update, indicating that a more stabilised grid is anticipated in the coming week. This, as concerns grow over load shedding’s impact on matriculants who are writing their final examinations.

South Africa is still navigating its energy challenges with the electricity minister announcing losses of up to 17 000 megawatts from the power grid in the past week alone.

This was slammed by the public, who called for a reprieve at least towards matriculants who are writing their examinations.

The minister says this is going to be a tricky one.

“At a principled level, it’s very difficult to exempt all schools because if you were to map the density of the geographic locations of the schools you find that the densities of this schools are located in areas of significant amount of load, that is where there are industries and the like, they share some of the distribution infrastructure with some of the energy intensive users. So, if you were to exempt them without a direct link to schools you are going to address load shedding at that distribution infrastructure. Unfortunately, that is not possible. So, I don’t want to create an impression that it’s going to be possible,” Ramokgopa added.

He indicated that the the long-awaited Integrated Resource Plan would be released at the end of this month.

The IRP is an electricity infrastructure plan which speaks to multiple sources of energy looking at the energy demand, how this demand will be supplied and at what cost. The minister had previously indicated that the IRP would be released in September 2023, but that this has been changed to November.

“It’s been under review and one of the things that we thought is necessary is that it’s important that there is a very robust intense conversation internally in government so that when minister Mantashe places the document there is a convergence in government on the configuration of the mix of the energy sources. What delayed it was the amount of robust consultation and we got it from him that by the end of November. The IRP 2023 should be out,” Ramokgopa explains the delays.

The ministry says it’s in a race against time to end load shedding and has called for greater co-ordination with municipalities in a bid to help residents. The minister will in the lead up to the release of the IRP document visit power stations across the country.

His day starts in the Mpumalanga Province at the Arnot power station on Monday. He has pleaded with the public to continue using electricity sparingly as government works to end load shedding and to stabilize the economy.

Following over a week of good generation performance and no load shedding, the minister says it was necessary to replenish emergency reserves following boiler leaks at major power stations.

“Last week, suddenly, we lost about 11 of these units stationed at Kusile, Majuba, Thutuka, Dhuva, Matla they really undermined that progression and as a result of that we lost 17 000 MW the week before this load shedding. The number of losses were sitting at about 13 000 MW on average. So suddenly, it’s an additional 4 000 MW and this undermines the public confidence in our ability to resolve this because we really don’t want big swings. Suddenly, no load shedding for eight days and then you go to stage 2 and stage 3. That’s unacceptable and a point we are conveying,” says Ramokgopa.

Video: Minister Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa briefs the media on implementation of the energy action plan