“Instead of load shedding, we have truth shedding.  When the lights went off in 2007, politicians relented and allowed Eskom to build power stations.  But they did not implement the rest of their restructuring and liberalisation promises, not even after repeating them in the National Development Plan. . . . .

The idea that we ‘save’ electricity by avoiding load shedding is like saying we save food by starving, health costs by staying sick, and money by not earning.  Taken to its logical conclusion, the perfect way to ‘save’ electricity is not to consume any.  With a return to primitive savagery, we will be perfect savers without load shedding.  What we need instead is maximised consumption and sensible politicians”.

Stagnation no reason for Eskom to celebrate: Leon Louw today in BDlive published by Business Day.

Further excerpts

ESKOM is electrifying.  Not in the sense that it is electrifying rural areas, or mines and factories, but in a shockingly electrifying sense.  It is running ads proclaiming victory in defeat.  Demand has fallen so catastrophically that Eskom “celebrated” a year without load shedding last week.  We should be weeping, not rejoicing.

There is nothing virtuous about stagnation and poverty.  Had the economy grown at the same rate as African market economies, we would be producing and consuming twice as much by now.  There is a near-perfect correlation between economic growth and electricity consumption.  Prosperity without electricity is virtually impossible.  Our electricity catastrophe, and other shocks, caused stagnation.  Celebrating this is perverse.

. . . . .

Eskom should not be empowered and delighted by the fact that its politically mandated failure plunged us into darkness.  To keep the lights on, money was wasted on expensive low-energy bulbs, gas heaters and cookers, costly insulation, solar panels and the like.  Lights were on and machines were off.  Factories stopped completely or wasted money on low-energy alternatives.  Every cent spent on reduced consumption was a cent diverted from better living standards, prosperity, job creation and poverty alleviation.  “Energy efficiency” is a misnomer — it means economic inefficiency.