Wheat farmers in the Frankfort area of the northern Free State have lost half their winter turnover because load-shedding prevents them from pumping irrigation water.
So the ruling by the Johannesburg high court last week rejecting an application to continue using solar power to offset the rolling blackouts came as a major blow.
Private electricity distributor Rural Maintenance (RM) and its subsidiary Rural Free State (RFS) lodged the application on an urgent basis to challenge a decision by Eskom to end the practice of “voiding” — a term coined by RM for using independently generated energy to offset load-shedding — in Mafube municipality.
Using this power from solar parks, the municipality had implemented its own reduced load-shedding schedule since February, following an agreement between RM and Eskom.
But Eskom later took exception to the way RM was implementing the agreement and ordered the company to halt “voiding”.
RM went to court, but judge Edwin Molahlehi said that because the municipality itself had not participated in the application, it had to be dismissed.
Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena, explaining the utility’s position, noted that the national grid was “extremely fragile”.
“To balance system demand and supply it is imperative that the load taken by customers from Eskom needs to be shed to support the system operator during an emergency,” said. When the demand exceeds supply the grid frequency becomes unstable and will result in multiple generating units tripping further. That could lead to a national blackout,” she said.
Eskom says “self load-shedding” — for which it gave RM permission in January — allows a qualifying municipality to protect its critical loads such as sewerage systems and water pumps from interruptions.
But under RM’s system of “voiding”, “they do not implement load-shedding as per the approved schedules during daytime hours when their solar PV plant is in optimal operation”.
The explanations don’t help farmers like Hans Pretorius, 64.
“In colder areas with no winter rainfall, wheat is probably the most important winter crop,” Pretorius, who has been farming in the area since 1984, told the Sunday Times.
We have two strong rivers here. It is hard to think that water can be a problem here, but it is
— Farmer Hans Pretorius
“Where we used to harvest six to eight tonnes of wheat per hectare, we are now pulling off approximately three to six tonnes. That is 50% of our turnover gone.
“We have two strong rivers here — the Liebenbergsvlei River carrying Lesotho’s water and also the Wilge River which flows into the Vaal River. It is hard to think that water can be a problem here, but it is.”
But to access the river water, farmers need to run pumps. “With all the load-shedding that is often difficult. Now you must use a generator which costs a lot of money, further destroying already small margins,” Pretorius said.
The farmers must now plan accordingly.
“You either plant less or spend more money on your own generation of electricity. We now plan as if we are farming in one of the dry, water-scarce areas of South Africa, otherwise we will have problems.”
Following the court judgment, RFS began switching off a portion of its solar farms to throttle the amount of electricity it was generating. It also put on hold a 480kW solar project in Frankfort that was almost complete.
On average 1.5kVA (kilovolt-amperes) of much-needed electricity is being dumped daily.
RFS general manager Gugu Mokoena said: “We generate about 3.7kVA every day. The town needs about 10kVA daily to run without Eskom. Our installed capacity is 10kVA but we are using about 7kVA daily.
“We divided the town into five zones. These zones have different times during the day when they are off. During that time Eskom will declare a stage. If we are generating way more than Eskom requires for that zone, we don’t load-shed that zone.”
But the court ruling has thrown a spanner in the works.
“Look at the sun above us and imagine the electricity we could have provided to our community. Instead, we are dumping electricity,” Mokoena said.
“We are generating, as we speak, 3kVA. I would say about half of that is being dumped. Eskom and all citizens see load-shedding is a problem, but we are dumping the solution.”
RM CEO Chris Bosch said: “Never before have I seen decisions made that go so completely against the needs of a community. We were caught out with a masterstroke of genius by Eskom.”
The family business was contracted by the Mafube municipality 11 years ago to manage its electricity distribution to Frankfort, Cornelia, Villiers and Tweeling in the Free State.
We are happy to bring solutions to the table, but the government should treat them constructively and admit that this is workable
— RM CEO Chris Bosch
The 25-year contract has 14 years left to run. But the municipality is now under administration.
Municipal manager Mothusi Lepheane said the contract had been sent to the National Treasury for review.
“Mafube is of the view that the contract is of absolutely no benefit to the community. The municipality is in dire financial straits and there is nothing that emanates from that contract that is in favour of Mafube in any way.”
Stefanie Jansen van Rensburg, Eskom’s Free State spokesperson, said RM's case against Eskom had been dismissed because Mafube municipality had failed to back it. She said because the solar farms did not generate enough power to meet Frankort’s total electricity demand, a portion still had to be supplied by Eskom.
If RM could have replaced the Eskom portion entirely, it would have been able to eliminate load-shedding, but the electricity it was already generating had been factored into the normal load profile and could not be offset against load-shedding, she said.
Bosch said when the Mafube municipality signed the contract, it had an average monthly income of R1.7m — and a monthly Eskom bill of R5m.
He said RM had invested R100m in infrastructure, trained staff and installed technology. The company now supplied about 15,000 electricity users in Mafube from five solar facilities with a capacity of 4.26MW. Of this, 3.78MW went to Frankfort.
“We are generating more than the load we are required to shed,” Bosch said. He could not say why Eskom objected to the way RM was “voiding” load-shedding.
“We are happy to bring solutions to the table, but the government should treat them constructively and admit that this is workable. We have all the facts and figures. We have done all the work and we are ready to move forward.”
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