Cape Town - Reaching nearly 270 days without load shedding, Eskom has confirmed that this resulted in a R16.46 billion savings while other energy services said the suspension provided for a decrease in vandalism and theft linked to it.
But what does this mean for the consumer and how promising does the year 2025 look?
City Power Johannesburg, which is a customer-centric energy services company, wholly owned by the City of Johannesburg, and operates in a highly regulated environment, told Weekend Argus the impact of the lights being kept on for nearly a year has boosted our economy, especially providing relief for businesses and consumers.
Eskom said since the inception of the Generation Recovery Plan from March 2023, it has resulted in significant cost savings and enhanced reliability of the coal-fired fleet, ensuring a stable and reliable power supply for all South Africans.
They said it resulted in a R16.46 billion savings with approximately 67.7% less than the R24.32 billion spent during the same period last year.
In August, Eskom shared its Summer Outlook for the period from 01 September 2024 to 31 March 2025, predicting a likely scenario of a load shedding-free summer due to structural generation improvements.
Eskom’s media desk said while they continued to find means and ways for load shedding to be suspended, their networks faced overloading issues due to illegal connections, vandalism, meter tampering, unauthorised network operations, theft of network equipment, and purchasing electricity from unlicensed vendors.
Isaac Mangena, Spokesperson for City Power said the suspension of load-shedding was a positive development for the economy and consumers.
“It offers a significant boost to the economy (especially for businesses) and provides much-needed relief for consumers due to power interruptions,” he explained.
“During load-shedding, City Power incurred a daily loss of R3.6 million.
“This can be attributed to several factors, including the increased need to replace critical materials, which was worsened by higher levels of theft and vandalism, equipment failures, and staff overtime.
“Additionally, customers were not consuming electricity during load-shedding, but they were still billed only for the energy they used, further contributing to the financial strain.
“It must be noted that the rate at which critical materials are depleted (due to theft, vandalism, and equipment failures) as a result of load-shedding exacerbates the performance of plants out of service (POS).”
Mangena added the negative aspect of load-shedding was that it provided an opportunity for copper cable thieves and vandals to exploit the situation.
“With the network inactive during load-shedding, criminals can steal copper cables without the risk of electrocution,” he said.
“The darkness created at night also helps them evade detection by security personnel and law enforcement.
“Since the suspension of load-shedding, we are seeing fewer cases of cable theft and vandalism, although this is still a significant issue that we are still dealing with.
He explained the integration of Renewable Energy Sources would focus on integrating renewable energy sources, such as solar energy, into the grid and help diversify the energy mix.
“This diversification reduces reliance on a single power source, thereby diminishing the risk of overloading specific energy systems and, consequently, the need for load shedding,” he said.
Charles Hlebela, spokesperson for NERSA, National Energy Regulator of South Africa and the City of Cape Town said they could not comment on the suspension of load shedding and referred queries to Eskom.