They were the towns that nobody wanted — until now. Kleinzee and Koingnaas in a remote corner of the Northern Cape have had no load-shedding due to a quirk of history.
The two former “private” mining towns on the Namaqualand coast, which used to belong to diamond giant De Beers, have a “high voltage” connection that cannot be cut, as doing so could destabilise Eskom's entire grid.
Eskom this week confirmed the unusual situation but said it may not last. “This a unique situation ... the stability of the entire grid could be jeopardised, until a permanent solution has been implemented,” the power utility said in response to Sunday Times queries.
It said its transmission division was experiencing "quality-of-supply issues due to the network being lightly loaded. Load-shedding worsens the problems experienced on an already constrained network. Transmission is investigating possible solutions to resolve the issue.”
Eskom did not explain why other "lightly loaded" small towns in the area were not exempt from load-shedding, prompting speculation the supply status of the former diamond mining towns might have to do with their unique history.
The remote towns have battled to survive since De Beers closed its mining operation and started selling infrastructure, including the towns' buildings, which went on auction.
Without De Beers the towns needed to be plugged into the local government administration, but cash-strapped municipalities were reluctant to pick up the services bill.
Kleinzee has yet to be formally transferred to the Nama Khoi Municipality, while Koingnaas was transferred to Kamiesberg Council in 2016 after years of negotiation.
800 -- estimated population of Kleinzee
105 -- Koingnaas estimated population
Escaping load-shedding is a bonus for the towns considering their severe service-delivery problems in recent years, particularly in Koingnaas where last year residents started fixing their own roads and municipal infrastructure — prompting a court interdict from peeved municipal officials. The Koingnaas Taxpayers Association (KTA) is demanding the Right to fix the town in a court showdown that commenced on Friday.
Residents this week said they went from being service-delivery outcasts to electricity royalty. “It is awesome, we are really privileged,” said Koingnaas accountant Marianne Glanz. “I have a staff member in Piketberg who is constantly without electricity. When I phoned her she said, 'Sorry, I can’t help you because I have load-shedding.'”
But other services are poor in Koingnaas, said Glanz, who moved to the town from Pretoria four years ago. “Potholes and water quality and pressure are bad.”
Most residents are unaware of the reason for their load-shedding exemption, with many assuming it is related to nearby mining activity. Some residents said they received electricity from Namibia.
De Beers, which still supplies electricity (from Eskom) in Kleinzee, said it was unclear why the town’s lights stayed on.
"De Beers is not responsible for Koingnaas, only Kleinzee, until all the municipal services have been transferred to the municipality — this will also include the Eskom account,” said De Beers spokesperson Jackie Mapiloko. “Yes, there's no load-shedding in Kleinzee but we don't know why.”
Veronica van Dyk, a DA MP who has a home near Kleinzee, said the electricity situation was “interesting”. She said the supply to Koingnaas was almost cut off once due to nonpayment by the municipality.
“Right now we have water-shedding. Everything else is falling apart except for the power.”
— Kleinzee resident
“Kamiesberg municipality was in big trouble because it was not paying the electricity bill [to Eskom] and there were threats to cut the power. But nothing came of it.” She said the reprieve may have been because of mining activity in the area.
Johan Gräbe, chair of the KTA, said residents had the privilege of local engineering expertise when they experience outages. “We have power outages with big storms and the mine fixes this within hours.”
Eskom said excluding areas with "critical loads" from load-shedding only happened "where the load can be isolated so that other loads that should be shed are not also protected from the load-shedding schedules”.
"Critical loads should as far as possible be protected from the affect of load-shedding or loss of supply."
One Kleinzee businessman, who did not want to be named, said he feared townspeople would become complacent about their constant electricity supply. “We all need to have a plan for when our freezers go off,” he said, adding that people needed to become more self-reliant because of the state of the world.
“Right now we have water-shedding. Everything else is falling apart except for the power.”
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