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SAWS struggles to monitor air quality because of loadshedding

  • The South African Weather Service failed to meet air quality monitoring goals in the last quarter.
  • The entity says that is due to air quality monitoring stations being offline as a result of loadshedding.
  • SAWS also said that its radar infrastructure is impacted by power cuts and it’s exploring the implementation of backup power solutions.

One of the more concerning aspects of the Disaster Management Regulations published at the end of February is the ability for Eskom to essentially ignore environmental limitations placed on it.

This is mighty concerning as Eskom can – and likely will – drag its feet to reinstall damage mitigation measures such as the flue-gas desulphurisation units at Kusile Power Station.

This is of course a major concern for environmentalists and is turns out, there is a lot more to be concerned about.

A meeting held in February which included the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment as well as the South African Weather Services (SAWS), provided an update on the performance of these two bodies.

The meeting highlighted that air quality monitoring stations reporting to the South African Air Quality Information System failed to meet minimum data requirements. The reason for this failure is, unsurprisingly, loadshedding.

Power cuts resulted in air quality stations being offline for numerous days especially in September where higher stages of loadshedding had a more dramatic impact.

“Instrument failures and faults were experienced at numerous stations. There were intermittent power failures due to load shedding. Localised power supply issues and power surges resulted in unexpected damage to ageing and new instruments. Stations in the Highveld network experienced 62 days of downtime, the Vaal network 147 days of downtime and Waterberg-Bojanala network 31 days of downtime due to load shedding. The SAWS was investigating relocating some stations to more stable electricity supply areas. Alternative means of powering equipment were also being explored,” said Ishaam Abader, chief executive officer at SAWS.

While SAWS is investigating the purchase of backup power solutions to solve this problem, as well as a problem it has powering radar infrastructure. The entity is also exploring a longer term plan to address power loss during higher stages of loadshedding including taking a loan out to install backup power solutions.

This is all incredibly concerning, especially on the back of news that Eskom is about to start pumping more emissions into the atmosphere. Without air-quality monitoring stations, South Africans likely won’t be aware of worsening air supply until it’s much too late.

With loadshedding appearing to ease up of late, we live in hope that monitoring can start up again without a hitch. With that having been said, we also live in dread for how bad our air quality is set to become over the course of the National State of Disaster.

[Source – Parliamentary Monitoring Group] [Image – CC 0 Pixabay]

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