{"id":317324,"date":"2019-05-16T14:47:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T12:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=317324"},"modified":"2019-05-16T14:47:18","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T12:47:18","slug":"we-now-have-a-better-idea-of-how-much-load-shedding-cost-the-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/317324\/we-now-have-a-better-idea-of-how-much-load-shedding-cost-the-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"We now have a better idea of how much load shedding cost the economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

As load shedding returned to South Africa in 2019, economists and experts pegged the impact on the economy at R2 billion for every day that stage 2 was implemented<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, new data from research and analysis group, Intellidex, shows that the true impact may not be as harsh as initially thought.<\/p>\n

According to Intellidex, the R1 billion per stage per day number was derived from Nersa and Eskom’s own figures, where they presented a base estimate impact on the economy at R75\/kwh.<\/p>\n

With several sectors now reporting in on GDP data, a more reflective picture is emerging, with the full scale of load shedding’s impact expected to be presented with Q1 GDP data at the end of the month.<\/p>\n

“We can account for around R300 million\/stage\/day<\/strong> so far – but this is only from a small number of sectors,” Intellidex said. “Q1 GDP may say up to around R500 million\/stage\/day<\/strong>, but it is unlikely to be more.”<\/p>\n

The lower impact on GDP from load shedding is good news for the economy, and shows that the broad narrative of businesses doing “okay” through load shedding was correct – but it could also lead to complacency, the group warned.<\/p>\n

And while the bigger picture impact may not be as severe as first thought, the impact on individual businesses has definitely been felt.<\/p>\n

Impact on businesses<\/strong><\/p>\n

A recent survey of small businesses taken by technology firm Yoco revealed how costly the most recent round of load-shedding was for SMEs in South Africa.<\/p>\n

“Of the businesses surveyed, almost half lost 20% of their revenue or more during the period of load-shedding in March,” the group said.<\/p>\n

“When considering that the majority of our small businesses survive on a turnover of less than R1 million annually, such a knock is a significant risk to business continuity should load-shedding continue at similar levels in the future,” it said.<\/p>\n

The responses revealed that load-shedding has become the number one concern for the country\u2019s small businesses, with the impact of rolling blackouts being two-fold.<\/p>\n

In the first instance, it has directly impacted revenue through inability to trade and\/or manufacture; and secondly, it has increased the cost of doing business, stretching already tight margins even further.<\/p>\n

According to Yoco, 85% of business owners stated that load-shedding has reduced revenue, while 20% said that if load-shedding continues, they will have to consider either reducing their staffing levels or closing their businesses.<\/p>\n

For 60%, the cost of doing business has gone up, as expenditure on generators, UPS devices, and switching to gas, for example, has been critical to \u201ckeeping the lights on\u201d – and a longer-term impact is predicted on increased prices to customers and reduced profitability.<\/p>\n

Load shedding\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa has avoided load shedding since the start of April, with only a few days where Eskom had to warn of high risk due to constrained systems.<\/p>\n

On 8 April, the power utility announced its winter plan to take the country through the cold weather of May and June, limiting breakdowns, and addressing maintenance backlogs.<\/p>\n

The plan followed weeks of rolling blackouts, where households and businesses sat without power for several hours a day as stage 4 load shedding hit.<\/p>\n

According to Intellidex, load shedding still remains a risk, and the coming months may be unpredictable, particularly as the weather gets colder.<\/p>\n

“The system is still being run at, in effect, a zero safety margin, as can be seen from its system updates. As a result, it is luck and the weather which will determine whether the system is pushed over the edge or not,” the group said.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: Here\u2019s how much money small businesses in South Africa say they lost because of load shedding<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As load shedding returned to South Africa in 2019, economists and experts pegged the impact on the economy at R2 billion for every day that stage 2 was implemented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":75316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[26,4080,12503],"class_list":["post-317324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-headline","tag-intellidex","tag-yoco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317324"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317340,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317324\/revisions\/317340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}