President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that the grid will collapse if the government fully implements the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, decision that schools, hospitals and police stations be exempted from load shedding.
Ramaphosa said their appeal of the judgment was not based on arrogance, but on the advice of engineers that they cannot afford to stop implementing power cuts in the way they are doing it now.
He said the engineers had told him that load shedding was implemented to avoid the collapse of the grid.
The view of the government was also about being practical about the decision of the High Court.
Ramaphosa, who was answering oral questions in Parliament on Thursday, said while they noted the judgment they needed to deal with the reality of reducing the severity of load shedding.
“The view we have taken in government, we need to take the practicality of that decision. Engineers tell me that if you drive all units in one go it would lead to the grid collapsing. Load shedding is the last resort. If we say there was no load shedding the grid will collapse,” said Ramaphosa.
He said the energy availability factor had gone below 50% and this caused a severe strain on the energy.
“If we want units to all generate electricity in one go it would lead to the grid collapsing. Personally, I want all those hospitals and schools to be exempted, but we are now faced with the impracticality of the situation.
“We are saving the grid otherwise it will collapse if we implement that judgment in full,” said Ramaphosa.
He said the reason for appealing the judgment was for the court to see the importance of implementing load shedding and how impossible it was to implement it.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
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