The independent power producer supplying Frankfort and the surrounding area in Mafube municipality with electricity from solar farms says it had to start switching off some of its panels after a recent court ruling.
As a result of the ruling, RFS has to throttle its electricity generation. It also halted a 480kW solar project in Frankfort that was nearly finished.RFS and its parent company Rural Maintenanceafter the state-owned power utility wanted to block the private power producer from implementing its own load-shedding system.
The independent power producer approached the High Court on an urgent basis to preserve the status quo, which it said would allow it to set its own load-shedding schedules.In a statement following the judgement, Eskom said the main issue was that RFS had developed its own system for reducing and eliminating load-shedding it calls “voiding”.RFS gave Frankfort a reprieve from load-shedding when it did not have the generating capacity to supply the whole town with electricity, Eskom stated.that ensure the stability of South Africa’s grid. It said that Rural Maintenance was required to abide by regulation NRS048–09 of the Nersa-approved National Code of Practice for Emergency Demand Reduction and System Restoration Practices.The independent power producer’s photovoltaic solar power stations can supply 3.7MW of electricity. “We generate about 3.7kVA every day. The town needs about 10kVA daily to run without Eskom. Our installed capacity is 10kVA, but we are using about 7kVA daily,” RFS general manager Gugu Mokoena reportedly told the Sunday Times.“These zones have different times during the day when they are off. During that time, Eskom will declare a stage. If we are generating way more than Eskom requires for that zone, we don’t load-shed that zone.” Mokoena said that following the High Court ruling, they are dumping about half of the 3.7kVA they generate daily. Rural Maintenance CEO Chris Bosch warned at the start of April that, if they lose, they would have to switch off parts of the solar farms while people in the town sit without power.“Never before have I seen decisions made that go so completely against the needs of a community,” Bosch stated.The court dismissed Rural Maintenance’s urgent application to preserve the status quo because it could not prove Mafube municipality had authorised it to proceed with litigation.Rural Maintenance is lying, says EskomResponding to questions from MyBroadband, Eskom said that not only does RFS not generate enough electricity to meet the town’s full demand, it also doesn’t need to switch off parts of its solar farms. “The impact of load-shedding on Frankfort can be reduced by Rural Free State using the power from the plant, but load-shedding as a whole cannot be eliminated as their generating capacity is not enough to cover the full demand for electricity,” Eskom said.Eskom said the independent power producer is welcome to reduce load-shedding in the town. “Rural Maintenance can use its solar plant to reduce the impact of load-shedding; Eskom has absolutely no objection to it and, in fact, welcomes the use of self-generation,” the state-owned power utility said. “Like all other towns in the country, they need to reduce a percentage of their Eskom-supplied electricity during load-shedding. Their self-generated electricity can be used at full capacity,” stated Eskom. “To illustrate the point, if the demand at Frankfort at any given time is 5MW and the PV plant is generating 3MW, the balance of load under consideration will be required to be reduced to comply with the Code.” Eskom also said Rural Maintenance could continue with self-load-shedding, allowing it to supply electricity to critical infrastructure like water pumps and sewage works. “Once again, the problem is not related to their use of electricity from the solar plant,” Eskom said. “It is the fact that they are not adhering to the Code of Practice because they are not reducing their use of Eskom-supplied electricity when a system emergency is declared. The integrity of the grid remains a priority.”“As per our numerous letters to them, they can continue implementing self-load-shedding as long as they adhere to the approved schedules that they have submitted to us,” Eskom said.Now read:
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