Star 2022-12-09

LOAD shedding at Stage 6 is causing serious challenges for South Africa’s automotive vehicle manufacturers, and production for the year might slide because of it, the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of SA (Naamsa) CEO Mike Mabasa said yesterday. He said the problem was the heavy duty equipment and large-scale robotic assembly and production equipment at the manufacturers, which could not be powered by generators or alternative energy sources as they require a great deal of continuous current. The auto manufacturers all had power-generation equipment, but this was limited to supplying lighting, small equipment and electronics with electricity. “With the prolonged power cuts, it means that instead of producing 100 cars a day, a manufacturer now can only produce 87 or 85 vehicles,” he said. An additional problem was that…

Currently costing economy estimated R3 billion a day in lost activity THE BUSINESS sector has unanimously slammed the government leadership and Eskom’s top executives for failing to contain rolling blackouts which cripple economic activity and jeopardise investment in the country. This comes as the struggling power utility plunged the country into darkness on Wednesday by implementing Stage 6 load shedding for the fourth time this year, following a number of breakdowns at its ageing coal-fired power stations. The South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Sacci) yesterday said this level of instability in the provision of power has serious negative implications for a country with high unemployment and a moribund economy. Sacci CEO Alan Mukoki said it was increasingly clear that the solutions thrown at the Eskom problem were insufficient,…

ESKOM has made a critical decision to delay the start of the outage of unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear power station to Saturday, in a bid to avert an additional stage of load shedding that could spell total collapse of the electricity grid, and a national blackout. The struggling power utility yesterday said delaying the outage at Koeberg would allow time to stabilise the system, and the recovery of some generation capacity. Koeberg’s unit was scheduled to be shut down for usual maintenance and refuelling, and the replacement of the three steam generators yesterday, as part of the long-term operation to extend the operating life of Africa’s only nuclear power station by a further 20 years. The unit is anticipated to return to service during June 2023 and its…

THE POULTRY industry is expecting to count the costs of the higher stages of load shedding as extended power outages force abattoirs to discard chickens not sufficiently cooled in the appropriate window period. The South African Poultry Association (Sapa) said yesterday that the bulk of poultry farmers used coal-driven solutions to keep their chicks warm, and to a lesser extent, gas-powered solutions. In a response to enquiry, Sapa said abattoirs had a much tougher time during periods of load shedding as they were big consumers of electricity. Sapa spokesperson Alex de Coning said each carcass needs to be cooled to below 7ºC within 45 minutes of being slaughtered and after that the meat is cut, and the product is either put in a cold store or in a freezer.…

GERMAN industrial group Rheinmetall plans to build its first South African plant to produce photovoltaic (PV) panels for the power-deprived local market, a company executive said yesterday. The decline of debt-crippled state utility Eskom has this year led to the worst power cuts on record in Africa’s most industrialised economy. This week, most South Africans have been without power for at least six hours a day. The outages have spurred demand for solar power systems. South Africa imported solar PV panels worth nearly R2.2 billion in the first five months of this year alone, mostly from China. Rheinmetall’s facility will have initial annual capacity to produce panels with total generating capacity of at least 500MW, said Jens-Patrick Helmsen, CEO of the company’s South African unit, Rheinmetall Denel Munitions (RDM). “The…

THE STAGE 6 rolling blackouts are detrimental to South Africa’s agribusinesses and the country’s economy. Ultimately, this meant that direct expenses increased and put pressure on profit margins of the entire value chain, Dawie Maree, head of Information and marketing at FNB agribusiness, said yesterday. For primary producers, such as farmers, it was important to keep to irrigation schedules, especially during the warm/heat periods of the day. “With load shedding, it might result in crops losing yield potential, and thus lower prices for farmers. For those who have generating capacity, this means higher costs because more diesel is being used,” Maree said. Dr Marlene Louw, senior agricultural economist at Absa relationship banking, said with primary agriculture, the biggest concern around an increase in load-shedding intensity and frequency was having irrigation…