City acknowledges Eskom’s load-shedding obligations

Since July 24, Eskom has directly load-shed CoE customers previously given to the municipality to manage.

According to a statement released by Eskom, the CoE failed to comply with the NRS 048-9:2019 code of practice, which requires electricity distributor licence holders to reduce load during a declaration of a system emergency.

The decision to take over load-shedding in Ekurhuleni followed monitoring and analysis by Eskom, which indicated the CoE was not reducing the load as per NRS 048-9:2019. Eskom said it had frequently engaged the municipality about its failure to load-shed its customers.

“The power utility took over the role of load-shedding the CoE’s customers after it contravened the requirements of the standard in the past. At the time, the CoE was only allowed to load-shed all the substations that feed critical loads,” stated Eskom.

Subsequently, on the CoE’s request, Eskom handed over the implementation of load-shedding of all the CoE customers to the municipality.

Strain on national grid

“Although Eskom noted the CoE’s technical challenges in executing load-shedding, it had no choice but to implement load-shedding for the CoE because the non-compliance strained the already constrained national grid. Failure to implement load-shedding by municipalities affected the integrity and stability of the grid, which could lead to higher stages of load-shedding,” it stated.

Eskom appealed to the public to reduce demand by switching off non-essential appliances such as geysers and pool pumps because it lowered demand, alleviated the pressure on the system and contributed to lower stages of load-shedding.

Economic hub

Ekurhuleni spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said the city would engage Eskom not to shed some of their critical substations in areas with a high concentration of large industries. He said this would not only impact the region’s economy but threaten jobs.

“We are an economic hub, and, therefore, we look forward to positive engagements with the power utility, bearing in mind the valuable contribution of industry to the economy. The city will propose load curtailment during negotiation with Eskom,” he explained.

He said load curtailment was the load reduction obtained from customers who could reduce demand on instruction.

Dlamini said this meant in the event of an emergency declaration, industrial customers must be able to reduce their load by a certain percentage.

Residential and industrial customers can contact the CoE for their load-shedding schedule on 086 054 3000 or www.ekurhuleni.gov.za