Questions and Replies

Reply:

Loadshedding in general causes damage to municipal electrical transformers and “damage to houses”. This is not necessarily the case. This has to be corrected and clarified upfront.

(a) Loadshedding in itself cannot reasonably cause damage to houses. Loadshedding itself cannot cause such damage, but there is a possibility that electrical power surges as a result of loadshedding, where voltage rises or falls above or below acceptable thresholds that may cause damage to equipment and / or appliances. Eskom’s customer agreements and conditions of service stipulate these possibilities for which the customers must take reasonable precautions such as, not leaving energised electric appliances unattended. 

The remedial action applicable, where negligence on the part of Eskom can be proven, is through the official Eskom claims process and customers may be compensated after a validated claim. In order for customers to plan around loadshedding, Eskom has published its schedules and the stage changes are also communicated as and when they are triggered.

(b) Switching transformers on and off as in the case of loadshedding, is a general Eskom Distribution network occurrence. However, for planned switching or maintenance activities, automatic clearing of network faults occurs via protection operations. The equipment is designed for such eventualities. 

Well-maintained networks and transformers should be able to withstand the burden of loadshedding, both on the Eskom network and the municipal networks, however failures can still occur. The Eskom and municipality tariffs also account for the required planned maintenance and /or upgrading and replacement or repairs of failed equipment and it is therefore up to the relevant supply authority such as Eskom or the municipality, to plan and budget for eventualities of such transformer maintenance, repairs and/ or failures. 

Eskom Distribution does have such “viable measures” in place in the form of network maintenance and refurbishment strategies and execution plans, as well as strategic transformer spares. Transformer repair contracts with reputable suppliers, internally and external to Eskom are also in place to repair damaged transformers that can be repaired.  Eskom Distribution cannot reasonably comment on measures taken by municipalities to deal with transformer failures.

Reply:

(1) We advise the member to direct the question to the Department of Cooporative Governance and Traditional Affairs.

(2) The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) is the regulatory authority, inter alia, on municipal electricity pricing guidelines. It publishes an annual determination of Municipal Tariff Guidelines and the revision of Municipal Tariff Benchmarks around May of each year, which is applicable to the following financial year (commencing in July 2023).

The public commenting period for the 2023/24 determination closed on 04 May 2023 and NERSA will accordingly publish their decision regarding the 2023/24 guidelines in due course.

Reply:

The NRS048-9 specification states that bulk potable water supply points should be exempted from loadshedding where the network allows this. The issue is that the bulk water supply points very rarely have the necessary independent network connections that would allow this to happen, and the water pumps are distributed very widely in the electrical networks, so excluding them would mean unacceptably large amounts of load would not be available for loadshedding, reducing the effectiveness of the loadshedding system as a tool to stabilise the Grid.

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Reply:

Members of the Cabinet are accountable collectively and individually to Parliament for the exercise of their powers and the performance of their functions. Any unauthorized or premature disclosure of Cabinet meetings or information undermines the collective responsibility of the Cabinet.

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Reply:

The mandate of the Minister of Electricity was outlined by the President, which is, the implementation of the Energy Action Plan and ending loadshedding.

Following various internal processes, the President will make a formal determination as to the assignment of power and functions of the Minister of Electricity.

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Reply:

a) The Ministry intends to fundamentally transform the electricity sector to achieve long-term energy security by working with Eskom to improve availability of the existing supply and by creating an enabling environment to accelerate investment in generation capacity from renewables, gas and battery storage.

b) In addition, the Ministry will develop innovative funding mechanisms for less affluent households to support the rapid deployment of demand-side interventions, including a blended finance mechanism to support solar PV rooftop installations.

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Reply:

Following his appointment, the Minister conducted a diagnostic assessment of he installed Eskom generation capacity resulting in the identification of a set of critical interventions to maximise the Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of the generation fleet.

Furthermore, the Ministry engaged a wide spectrum of stakeholders, including Industry, Labour, Original Equipment Manufacturers and the Diplomatic community who have all pledge support for strategic interventions to reduce the intensity and frequency of load shedding.

The immediate preoccupation is to improve the performance of the existing Eskom base load fleet, maximize the performance and output of peeking stations and suppress demand through an aggressive demand side management programme, which will be implemented with effect from May of 2023. Whilst these measures will contribute to the reduction and frequency of load shedding, it is not possible at this stage to commit to a definitive end date for loadshedding.

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