The Upside of Load Shedding
Finding the positives of being without power
South Africa’s relationship with Eskom is a strange one. At one point the company was rated the world’s best power producer and, run by engineers, had done a remarkable job of supplying the country with cheap reliable electricity. However, since the heydey of the late 1990s, it has gone into a rapid decline, precipitated by poor governance and widescale political corruption. But the details of that story are captured elsewhere. This article is about ‘load shedding’ the wonderful Eskom invention which is symptomatic of poor choices and poor leadership over the last twenty years.
What is load shedding?
The lights go out for a few hours. Usually, they go out at random times for no reason anyway, but load shedding is when they go out according to plan. It’s called load shedding because, well, the power provider puts them out so that the load is reduced. This happens for one of two official reasons: The grid can’t handle the current load (due to a lack of maintenance on the underlying infrastructure) or there is a need to save capacity in one area to use it somewhere else. At present, South Africans are in for an estimated 18 months of load shedding, while the issues in the grid are sorted out.
So, what’s the upside?
1. It’s good for the climate
We training to manage without power for hours at a time. And, in response, people are fitting their houses with solar panels, gas stoves (it’s not ideal, but it’s better than coal power) and a variety of other hacks to make themselves less dependent on centralized power, and more resilient overall.
2. The demand for energy has gone down in South Africa
Over ten years, the country has reduced its energy consumption. This may in part be due to the shift in household demand towards energy efficiency as more solar geysers and panels have been fitted. And, perhaps, reflective of the national decline in manufacturing. Electrical geysers that are always on have been replaced by timed and solar geysers. No, it doesn’t make up for the cheap electricity that was to be provided to the aluminum smelter by Eskom in an egregious derivatives deal. But it’s something.
3. When there is load shedding, less coal is being burnt
Eskom has made many poor decisions over the last few years. Arguably, the worst of these has been the investment into new coal power plants. Globally power providers are being challenged by what is called the Utility Death Spiral. Investments into massive infrastructure projects that raise the electricity price for consumers, make renewable energy more attractive by narrowing the price gap. This, in turn, reduces demand for traditional electricity sources.
South Africa has a very small base of electricity payers. By choosing coal over renewables and asking this base to carry the cost of the infrastructure investments, panels and other ways to reduce household electricity bills became more affordable. That’s the upside.
4. Water is being saved
Coal power plants use water. They use a lot of water. It’s not a good thing that they use the amounts of water that they do and it’s a worse thing when they do it in a water-scarce country. South Africa is a water-scarce country. Water problems across the country are well documented. So, load shedding saves water. Hooray!
5. More candlelight dinners
Alright, we know that Eskom has made a mess and the politicians supported them to make that mess. On the other hand, who doesn’t love a candlelit dinner? It certainly brings out the conversation and, especially, the Eskom jokes.
A man says to his psychologist.
I feel powerless.
It’s not you, it’s Eskom.
What’s goes out randomly and comes back a few hours later?
South Africa.
There are plenty of them around. Just search: Load shedding jokes.
Every crisis is an opportunity
One of the mental hacks that can be used to circumvent reactivity is to be grateful for the good and the bad. To keep looking for an upside, no matter how things may seem on the surface. If we switch perspectives on load shedding, then an ideal opportunity has been presented for South Africa to use fewer resources, connect more, and think carefully about a leapfrog electrical strategy. There is plenty of new technology out there to change how the energy market operates. Surely, a clever combination of AI, Blockchain, and Renewables is the way forward.
Maybe Eskom could schedule things so that we go to a four day work week?
