Eastern Cape residents are spreading the love by way of tips and innovative ideas to work around the energy crisis.
After four consecutive days of Stage Four load-shedding, on Friday Eskom announced a “reprieve” as the level was returned to Stage Two.
While the country may have breathed a collective sigh of relief, residents are also under no illusions that Stage Four load-shedding, if not higher, will return with a vengeance sooner rather than later.
On Tuesday, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan conceded it would be a “huge struggle” to overcome the electricity crisis.
“Ten to 12” engineers were travelling around SA, visiting different power stations to provide an “independent view” of what needs to be done to fix the power utility.
However, Gordhan said it would be 10 days to two weeks before the results of these assessors’ findings would be known.
For enterprising Eastern Cape residents, that is already too long.
Subscribing to the “time waits for no man” ethos, they have set about devising ideas and contraptions that will allow them and others to make life a little easier as the power dearth continues.
Retired Eastern Cape journalist Bobby Cheetham has revved up his efforts to combat the effects of load-shedding.
“A few years ago, I bought a UPS [Uninterrupted Power Supply] for my computer. It only has a small battery, powers the computer for about half an hour,” he said. “But I recently ran into [South African motor-racing legend] Terry Moss who owns a business selling generators and inverters.
“We got talking, and Terry suggested I look at using a small motorcycle battery to power items in my house.”
Cheetham followed his advice.
“I opened up the UPS box, took out the UPS battery and put in a motorbike battery. I then ran the wires in the house,” he said.
“I was obviously nervous when I powered it up, but it worked perfectly. It lasts about three-and-a-half to four hours.
“It can power a few things in the house. My bedroom gets very hot, so I can run my fan.
“I can also plug it into my alarm system, so it can run the battery and keypad when the power goes out.
“I’ve been running it two or three nights now, and it’s really working well.”
Photographer Niki Marusich has drawn from her childhood experiences to come up with a nifty idea to provide light during load-shedding.
“When I was young, we used to play a game where we shone a torch through a clear bottle to give more light,” she said.
“So now anytime the light goes off, I fill a clear bowl of water and put my cellphone’s torch or LED light through it, and it amplifies the light,” Marusich said.
“I just have to make sure all my devices are charged before the power goes off.”
Cradock couple Julienne du Toit and Chris Marais are quite used to living without power and water.
Ageing infrastructure has made the absence of a regular power supply a feature of Cradock living, which has necessitated that they find ways to work around it. “Sometimes we’re even grateful for load-shedding, because at least we then know when the power is going to go off, which is not the case at other times in Cradock,” Du Toit quipped.
As much as they can, Du Toit and Marais, who run the website Karoo Space, live “off the grid”, and have adopted a back-to-basics approach in doing so.
“We use candles and torches for stop-gap lighting, and keep our solar lamps charging on a sunny ledge until needed. “We keep our laptop, portable radio and cellphones charged. And if we forget, we have a simple old solar charger and small power bank for emergencies,” Du Toit said.
Like all good South Africans, they braai regularly and keep a gas bottle and attachment handy “so we can at least cook a meal quickly and keep it warm in a Wonderbox, or boil some water”...