Stellenbosch and Cloetesville residents were left confused when they experienced loadshedding outside of their scheduled times during the week of 8 November.
Residents who lived within block 8 and block 2 experienced load shedding at times that contradicted the schedule provided by both Stellenbosch Municipality and Eskom, making it difficult to plan for the power cuts, according to Stuart Grobbelaar, the communications manager at Stellenbosch Municipality.
“The uncertainty around which block’s schedule we are following led to a great deal of frustration from all our residents and made it very difficult for residents to plan their days around Eskom’s loadshedding. The municipality continuously reached out to Eskom to ensure accurate information is received and shared with our communities but to no avail,” Grobbelaar commented to MatieMedia per WhatsApp correspondence.
According to Grobbelaar, Eskom was responsible for dividing Stellenbosch into various blocks for loadshedding.
Most of the confusion surrounded blocks 2 and 8, according to Carla Coetzee, a BSc Chemistry honours student at Stellenbosch University (SU).
“Our residence falls under the block 2 loadshedding schedule. However, every day the municipality had to update us on which block’s schedule we follow,” Coetzee told MatieMedia over WhatsApp correspondence. She explained that they appeared to sometimes fall under block 2, but other days their power would be off according to block 8’s schedule. “Sometimes the power would be off for 6 hours or would skip loadshedding completely for the day. It’s very inconsistent,” Coetzee said.
Block 2 consists of the Stellenbosch central business district, SU & Ida’s Valley, while block 8 includes Cloetesville, Kayamandi, Jamestown and other areas, according to Grobbelaar.
Students struggle
A generator in front of the Mike De Vries building on Merriman Avenue in Stellenbosch. PHOTO: Wessel Krige
The inconsistent nature of the load shedding schedule has made it almost impossible to plan for many Stellenbosch and Cloetesville residents, according to Ilse Wepener, an Ancient Cultures honours student at SU.
“I am currently working on my thesis and without power or internet, there’s not much I can do. By the time the lights usually come on again late at night, I’m much too tired to work.” Wepener commented on how the inconsistent schedule has affected her work.
The schedule also made the use of computers almost impossible for students, according to Coetzee
“For my honours project, I have to run calculations on a supercomputer. Sometimes it needs to run for 24 to 48 hours consistently. So, whenever there is loadshedding it has to start over and that can get very tedious,” Coetzee commented.
Municipality condemns Eskom
The Solar panels on the roof of the Neelsie student centre in Stellenbosch. PHOTO: Wessel Krige
On 10 November, Stellenbosch Municipality took to Twitter to condemn Eskom’s inconsistency. “Eskom’s failure to stick to their schedules and messages made life for us and our residents very difficult,” Grobbelaar commented.
The municipality’s sentiment was shared by Coetzee, who called for consistency.
“If they have to implement load shedding, then they can at least be consistent because the burden now lies on the university to provide data,” Coetzee commented.
Eskom did not respond to MatieMedia’s queries by the time of publication.