Questions have been raised about the feasibility of exempting schools, clinics, hospitals, and police stations from load shedding.

On Friday, the Pretoria High Court issued an order effectively exempting these public facilities from load shedding, with the government being ordered to provide alternate energy supplies like generators where exemption isn’t possible.

This was on the back of legal action from more than a dozen organisations and political parties.

The Department of Public Enterprises has been granted 60 days to devise a plan to shield these public facilities from power cuts.

Energy expert Adil Nchabeleng said from a technical point of view, the judgment does not make sense.

He said Eskom would have to revamp its entire infrastructure and distribution networks to be able to comply with this ruling.

He said a more workable solution would be for government to provide these facilities with stored energy batteries during times of load shedding but this will be an expensive exercise.

“Have your solar panels, have your battery package, have your inverter in place of load shedding, and then for backup when there is no sun and other things, you can use generators because load shedding is an alternative thing.

“You don’t have blackouts where you go for days without electricity it is just two or three hours in between and that can be mitigated with a small solar solution for now.”