‘Exempting schools, hospitals and police stations from load shedding is impractical’

An energy expert says exempting all schools, hospitals and police stations from rolling blackouts (load shedding) is simply not practical.

These assertions come after the North Gauteng High Court ruled that hospitals, schools and police stations are to be exempted from rolling blackouts.

The United Democratic Movement (UDM) and other 17 organisations took the matter to court seeking exemption of the institutions, where the court found that rolling blackouts are an infringement of constitutional rights, and has given the Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan 60 days to take all reasonable steps to ensure that these institutions are exempted from rolling blackouts.

Energy Analyst Kgose Moleshe says it will be almost impossible to implement the court judgement

“It is not practical at all because if you have schools, hospitalsm – they are all embedded within the communities and what it will do in any case, if you were to do that, it could lead to more intense loadshedding and also the potential importing of diesel generators, so you might as well use that money to reduce loadshedding,” says Moleshe.

‘Exempting all schools, hospitals and police stations from loadshedding is not practical’