Extreme loadshedding is placing our local manufacturers under immense strain and it is thus essential that all the stakeholders work together to find emergency solutions to mitigate the risks, says Denise van Huyssteen, CEO of the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber.
She said that now that extreme loadshedding has become the norm, manufacturers are struggling to retain the viability of their operations. “It is now a question of survival for many manufacturers over the coming weeks and months. Nelson Mandela Bay’s economy is in a particularly vulnerable situation, given that manufacturing represents 20% of our local economic activity and has a massive downstream impact on many other sectors of our economy.”
A survey conducted by the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber for the first quarter of this year, indicated that one in five businesses had cut jobs and over 90% were halting investment and expansion plans. Also 75% of businesses surveyed had been forced to implement short-time, while 18% reported job cuts. “We will conduct another survey for the second quarter and unfortunately anticipate that the feedback will be even more severe.”
The collaborative interventions to date between the Chamber and the Municipality have been key in keeping the doors of manufacturers open. “Of particular importance is the 24 hour stage 5+ schedule which allows for better planning of production operations around loadshedding through the limitation of the frequency of interruptions and the adoption of 24 hour shut-downs instead.
To date 35 manufacturers have met the criteria to be on this schedule and we are hoping that going forward more will be incorporated. This approach is suitable for manufacturers who operate according to continuous production processes.”
“We greatly appreciate that the Municipality has had the foresight to work with us on the 24 hour schedule and extend our grateful thanks to them for partnering with us on this. There is no doubt that this has already saved thousands of jobs.”
Van Huyssteen said that the Chamber welcomed the Municipality’s proposal to introduce load curtailment as a loadshedding mitigation measure but noting that this should be deployed among those manufactures whose follow batch or related production processes. “The approach should be to get as many manufacturers as possible onto the 24 hour schedule and load curtailment options, depending which works, as quickly as possible.”
She also highlighted the need to urgently access emergency power and to this end was pleased that the Municipality was undertaking a study to potentially get their gas turbine generation facility at Mount Road up and running. “It is vital that this study is concluded as soon possible and engagement takes place with business, so that we can assist to accelerate this coming to fruition.”
She emphasised that local manufacturers were playing their part to reduce non-essential and other load where ever possible. “Based on feedback that we have received from our manufacturing members, cumulatively they have permanently reduced demand by 25MW. This is more than one stage of load shedding for the city”
The Chamber’s renewable energy cluster, which comprises more than 33 of the metro’s manufacturers and accounts for about 20% of local electricity consumption, could potentially bring an additional 100MW of power onto the grid during 2025. Although the country’s regulatory environment around independent power generation has been eased, its main shortcoming is that power which is generated from any location in the country simply goes back into the national grid. This currently is not ring-fenced and used as an off-set to loadshedding at a local level.
Our view is that the renewable energy produced at the cost of local businesses and consumers, must benefit Nelson Mandela Bay as a whole and as we bring more power onto the grid, this should directly reduce levels of loadshedding for our metro.”
“There is no doubt that ongoing collaboration between the Chamber, the Municipality, Eskom and other key stakeholders is vital to save investment and jobs in Nelson Mandela Bay. We therefore appeal to all the stakeholders to work together to accelerate the implementation of innovative solutions to limit the impact of loadshedding and to generate and access additional power.”
Alan Straton
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