Load shedding: shedding time-consumers as well?

With all of Krugersdorp in a frenzy about Eskom and Mogale City Municipality not doing their jobs, the News investigates what this darkness’ silver lining could be …

On Saturday 7 February, just as the sun was setting, the power was cut. Given Krugersdorp has no up to date load shedding schedule, most of us were pleasantly surprised when we discovered that dinner will be at the nearest power-supplied fast food outlet. Or were we?

Of course not.

So to brighten up the darkness we are faced with, the news approached load shedding with a smile on our faces, not letting power outages leave us in a dark mood.

Many residents acknowledge that life in the dark provides more family time, leisure time, cleaning time and even thinking time. Ultimately, reduced electricity leaves us with the one thing no one has these days: time.

Elzie Viljoen and Tiaan Janse van Rensburg from Krugersdorp North decided to light a few candles and fry a pack of marshmallows while gazing at the starts. Pierre Fourie from Krugersdorp West assembled his telescope and found the darkness to be very helpful in finding stars.

“The light from neighbours, shops, streetlights and even the moon reduces visibly enormously when star-gazing,” he says.

Deano Govender and his 11-year-old daughter, Lois were faced with some fears in the dark 60 metres underground. As the power went out in Kromdraai, the Wonder Caves’ lift ceased to operate.

“We got trapped in a cave because of load shedding and the generator was not working. The lift couldn’t operate. I was confused at first because I thought the guide was playing a prank on us, but then I was like oh, this is real,” says Deano.

Lois, her dad and another father and daughter had to climb two ladders and 85 steps to safety and faced their fear of heights.

As for the News, we will spend some more time with loved ones swimming in the dark, taking candle lit baths or conquering our fears (mostly of the dark).

Some background into the country’s load shedding crisis:

Load shedding, especially in developing countries, are caused by insufficient generation capacity or inadequate transmission infrastructure. According to World Bank data, countries worldwide experience an average of five outages a month. The Middle East and North Africa are hit the hardest with an average of 23 outages a month. As for South Africa, in early November 2014 the Majuba power plant lost its capacity to generate power after a collapse of one of its coal storage silos.

The Majuba power plant delivered about 10 percent of the country’s entire capacity and the collapse halted the delivery of coal to the plant. A second silo developed a major crack on 20 November causing the shut down of the plant again. This was after temporary measures were instated to deliver coal to the plant.

In December 2014, Eskom launched a major stage three load shedding in South Africa after the shut down of two power plants in November due to diesel shortages. Two weeks ago, it was announced that they will – once again – resort to stage three load shedding.

What do you think load shedding gave you that electricity never could? Will there be a baby boom in nine month’s time? Tell us in the comments section below. Make your thoughts known.