An electric car race in Stage 6 loadshedding? How CT e-Prix organisers plan to cope in energy crisis

Race promoter Iain Banner is confident that Stage 6 loadshedding will not impact this weekend's Formula E race in the streets of Cape Town. 

The energy demands for this all-electric racing series are incredibly high, and obvious questions have been raised over how a country experiencing an energy and electricity crisis could possibly be in a position to pull it off. 

Banner, though, says he has been given an assurance from the City of Cape Town that it will be equipped to handle the city's biggest sporting event since the 2010 Soccer World Cup.

According to Banner, the City of Cape Town has made provisions for Stage 6 loadshedding, but there remains the possibility remains that it could drop to Stage 5, or perhaps even Stage 4, this weekend. 

"Every Formula E race in the world has a primary power plan and a backup plan, and we have both," Banner confirmed to News24.

"The primary power plan is with the City of Cape Town [to keep the power going], and then we have generators running on bio-fuel, which is the backup."

The backup plan

According to Banner, e-Movement - the promoters for the race - ensured that there are 28 generators in place, generating between 30kW and 1.375MW of power.

The idea behind the multitude of generators is that if loadshedding is, in the extreme scenario, ramped up to Stages 7 or 8, the electric ecosystem will not suffer because of it.

Banner further explains that because 11 teams are fielding two cars each, it will put extra pressure on the City's power supply; hence e-Movement will ensure that the race cars and the safety car are always fully charged.

"Our generators go through the distribution panels provided by Formula E, taking the generated power and distributing it to the charging system that