Cape Town - Small businesses will have to brace for a tough festive season amid increased levels of load shedding expected into December.
This as Eskom announced yesterday that Stage 4 load shedding would remain in place until Saturday because of increased demand and insufficient generating capacity.
Jacques Moolman, president of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the production lines of small businesses would be affected.
“The most concerning aspect about the return to high load-shedding levels is that it compounds the current negative impacts of the logistics crisis.
“We are just weeks away from what promises to be a bumper tourism season; if load shedding continues at its current level it will negatively impact particularly small businesses.
“It was hoped this summer season would help many businesses recover from huge losses during Covid-19.
“It is still too soon to know the immediate impact on our members of the latest spike in load shedding, but we expect it will be similar to previous rounds.”
Moolman said some sectors were worse affected than others.
“Some SMME’s in the local plastic manufacturing sector earlier this year reported declines of around 30% – 40% during peak load-shedding times.
“We also know that many SMMEs are unable to afford the massive capital expenditure required for alternative energy supply (hybrid solution of solar and other sources, for example, generators) to offset the impact of high-stage load shedding.
“It is worth noting that the government also incurs huge extra costs as a result of load shedding,” said Moolman.
Eskom said unplanned outages increased from 15 386 MW to 15 424MW of generating capacity yesterday.
“In the last 24 hours, 500MW of generating capacity was taken off-line while in the same period 600MW were returned to service. Approximately 1300MW of generating capacity was anticipated to return to service by Tuesday evening,” said Eskom.
The City said load shedding continued to have an impact on businesses and the economy at large, although many larger businesses in tourism and affiliate industries could mitigate the effects of power outages through renewable energy solutions or the use of generators.
Economic Growth mayoral committee (mayco) member James Vos said businesses were constantly looking for ways to mitigate the economic impact of load shedding.
“From my daily engagements with businesses in factories and boardrooms, I’ve seen how their production lines are affected and there have been tough conversations around how they cope. Often, they are forced to divert budget from things like hiring more staff to taking measures to keep the lights on.
“Much work is also under way as it pertains to the City’s build, small-scale embedded generation, wheeling and independent power-producer programmes.”
francesca.villette@inl.co.za