GRAAFF-REINET NEWS - Once again load shedding has become the "new normal" and people have to rearrange their lives around a schedule imposed to them by this fossil dinosaur ESKOM that refuses to deliver on its promises, nor does it go away easily. Others are less lucky and can't even afford the ever-spiralling cost of electricity.
Once again ESKOM would be the laughing stock of the nation, if it were not for such dire consequences to the economy, for jobs, for livelihoods.
This article was actually written in 2015 and is only slightly updated.
People were crying out when the first round of load shedding took place.
At the time "Renewable Energy" was a new buzz word and solar lamps were selling like hotcakes in town.
Fracking the Karoo was touted as the magic wand to make the energy crisis away.
Since then the gas industry has long left the Karoo and is fracking elsewhere, like in Argentina and Bolivia. It was then that a new plan was born, how to make Graaff-Reinet 100 % "renewable" and save the municipal finances from collapse.
Still, the sale of ESKOM electricity to its customers is the biggest single contribution to the municipal budget. That share is set to increase even further as the cost of ESKOM electricity is set to rise soon, because the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) has approved a 13.87% average price increase for the coming years. Soon, the lights will be permanently off for many families after they have consumed the free first 50 kWh.
But can Graaff-Reinetters escape this national crisis?
Can we make this beautiful and fine town immune against load shedding? Yes, we can, according to a plan to make "Graaff-Reinet 100 % Renewable" drafted (by this author) in 2015.
It goes like this: the municipality teams up with private investors to set up a utility-scale solar power station just outside of the town with less than just fifty hectares of (concentrated) solar panels that can produce three times the current electricity demand of the grid.
Investors are in fact lining up to get a slice of the cake of world-class renewable energy properties in the Karoo.
The municipality would be an equal partner in this enterprise, bringing valuable assets into the partnership like it's the land where to build the plant, the existing distribution network, its customer base, its billing system and other management functions.
There are many excellent Renewable Energy options in the municipality.
Provincial and national partners, even international ones have already expressed their interest in such a public-private partnership, which would go together with better building efficiency, energy education and a serious public participation process by all involved. It could have started with a "Graaff-Reinet Energy Summit" in 2015, which would have brought the best brains together to thresh out the details and discussed the stumbling blocks.
But, alas, the municipality had other priorities. Later, in 2018 the new municipal council showed some interest but soon had its hands full to contain the outfall of the amalgamation…
The net result: nearly four years after its initiation, the plan is still there and has not been discussed in any serious way. Meanwhile, the crisis deepens, the municipal deficit, especially the one with ESKOM, makes any new step more and more difficult and investors are losing patience and are looking for promising alternatives elsewhere. Key consumers that rely on a stable electricity supply are looking for viable alternatives.
But it is not too late: the next ESKOM crisis is just around the corner, and then lights could go out completely.
The last few weeks have also been a stark reminder that without electricity we have no water, now that we depend even more on borehole water, which requires 100 % electricity for pumping and storing. The next municipal elections will be – just like the last ones – about service delivery of water and electricity. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with electoral support, but if you don't…
People can't wait any longer!
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