CAPE TOWN, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- Calls emerged on Monday for the South African government to reshape the country's entire sector to avoid rolling blackouts.
This came after parts of South Africa were plunged into darkness on Sunday when electricity utility Eskom was forced to implement emergency stage 1 load shedding following the revelation that five of its coal power stations had less than 10 days of coal supply.
"These outages are proof that South Africa desperately needs a long-term solution to reshape the entire energy sector," the opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) said.
Eskom, which supplies about 95 percent of the electricity consumed in South Africa, relies heavily on coal to generate its power stations.
The utility reportedly is looking to spend one billion rand (about 70 million U.S. dollars) on diesel over the next four months to fill the gap and keep the lights on.
Calling the move "unsustainable," the DA said there is a complete lack of long-term planning and strategy at Eskom.
"Eskom needs a firm plan of action to make it more efficient and productive," said Natasha Mazzone, DA Shadow Minister of Public Enterprises.
The DA has introduced its proposed Independent System and Market Operator (ISMO) Bill which will see Eskom split into two entities, a transmission/grid entity, and a generating entity to resolve the current impasse.
This would allow the state-run parastatal to compete with other power producers on an equal footing, with price and efficiency being the main determinants of delivering power to the national electricity grid, the DA said.
"Eskom's monopolistic stranglehold of power delivery to the economy must be broken," Mazzone said.
This is the only way South Africa can free up the energy space to competition, stability and reliability, he said.
Since 2008, South Africa has suffered from power insufficiency which seriously impedes the country's economic growth and affects people's lives, particularly in 2014 and 2015 when load shedding constantly gripped the country.
Poor management and lack of funding have forced Eskom to implement load shedding at three stages as a last resort to protect the national system from a total blackout.
Stage 1 load shedding allows for up to 1,000MW of the national load to be shed once a day. If the pressure grows, stage 2 for up to 2,000MW or stage three for up to 4,000MW would be shed. At stage 2, power goes off twice a day, while at stage 3, electricity could be cut two or three times a day.
