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Neccessity drives invention for SA power users

Cape Town – Some South Africans know how to cope in times of darkness as can be seen from various innovations employed to cope with almost-daily load shedding.

Constant load shedding has infuriated much of the population and left many in a state of helplessness. Yet some Fin24 users refuse to be held in a state of limbo by the embattled supplier.

READ: Load shedding forces SA to cut reliance on Eskom

One user, Andries Potgieter, is a farmer outside of Potchefstroom and depends on electricity to irrigate crops using centre pivots.

He writes: “A centre pivot normally uses an electric motor to run the centrifugal pump supplying the water to the machine. The pivot also uses electricity to run the motors driving the machine. All this electricity dependence is very bad when load shedding comes into play.”

Potgieter then made a plan and bought two new pivots but explains that in the irrigation of maize crops “the machine stands still for most of the year and really works only 3 months maximum”. Yet, despite using no power, he has to pay for the connection through an Eskom transformer.

“We then decided to use two diesel engines to run the centrifugal pumps, while simultaneously running two small 3-phase generators for the electricity to run the pivot's wheel motors. Agrico's engineers calculated the size of the diesel engines, and we did the installation to our pump stations,” he said.

“We are also working on a 50kva generator to run our pump station that is electricity dependant, when there is no power. If the crops are even without water for a day in heat like the last few days, you get lots of damage. With costs as high as we have nowadays you can’t afford any losses.”


Another user, David Dunwoodie, will soon have solar installed and his hybrid system will only be dependent on Eskom when weather does not allow for solar power generation.

Sharon Muir encourages South Africans to “save as much as they can [and] use these savings towards getting off the grid”. Muir has lost faith in Eskom and speculates that the company will have a serious shortage of power stations in the near future.

Other users have expressed extreme frustration at Eskom’s inability to provide power despite being paid for the service. Louise McDuling said: “we have pre-paid electricity and still we are cut off. So we are paying in advance for no service”.

McDuling is also frustrated with cable theft and other users who do not pay their accounts. “We had increased [payments] to fund the new power stations and there is nothing to show to us as [the] public” she said.

Disclaimer: All articles and letters published on MyFin24 have been independently written by members of the Fin24 community. The views of users published on Fin24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent those of Fin24.


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