Electricity Emergency Response Plan - South African Industry’s Contribution
A previous post, Rolling Blackouts to Benefit South Africa, hypothesised that the strong reaction to the rolling blackouts Eskom was forced to implement has resulted in urgent
action which will in the medium term ensure South Africa has the energy systems it needs for its long term development.
In 2004 the three major users of electricity in South Africa were Industry (64.6%), Residential (17.4%) and Commerce (12.0%). It was therefore logical that once Eskom, with the “urging” of Government, faced the situation and took co-ordinated action it went to industry.
Discussions with industries and especially the large users in mining and manufacturing, were based on Eskom admitting that it was unable to guarantee supplies to industry, presenting a long term plan of action and requesting that industry manage itself to achieve an immediate 10% reduction in its consumption.
Industry supported the request although it lead to week long shut downs of a number of mines which were unable to immediately reduce their consumption without effecting the complete process.
This was termed Phase 1 of the National Emergency Response Plan and was mainly aimed at stabilising the system to avoid catastrophic shut downs that could result from instability induced by too small a margin between demand and supply.
