Load shedding know-how

WITH load shedding come questions and misunderstandings, as residents are not quite sure how it all works.

A resident in Glenwood said she was concerned as she had load shedding twice last Wednesday, and felt this was a bit too much.

“We experienced load shedding twice, from 2pm to 4.30pm and 6pm to 8.30pm. This is crazy and not the arrangement, as far as I am aware. I also wonder about all the people that get stuck in lifts when unexpected load shedding takes place, never mind expected load shedding. I would be terrified to be stuck in a lift for two hours in the pitch dark – what about the elderly or small children?” asked Claire Williams.

According to the eThekwini Municipality's website, Eskom has developed a hierarchy of emergency conditions, each requiring a specific load reduction, which make up stage one, stage two and stage three.

Depending on the severity of the supply constraint, Eskom would declare a stage one, two or three emergency to prevent a national blackout.

Stage one is a national shortage of 1 000MW, stage two is a national shortage of 2 000MW and stage three is a national shortage of 4 000MW, which includes the entire city of Durban (with the exclusion of strategic national resources).

According to the site, the power going out twice in one day constitutes stage three.

An eThekwini stage one emergency will affect largely residential and commercial loads, while stage two will include industrial loads. A stage three emergency will involve all customers, with the exception of certain critical resources.

Load shedding will be enforced only in emergency situations in which Eskom cannot meet the national demand from customers, and this is most likely to occur in high demand periods between 5pm and 9pm during weekdays and when there are unexpected faults on the generation network.

Only as a last resort, and when every other attempt to balance the supply and demand has failed, will load shedding be introduced to prevent a national grid collapse, which could take days to restore. Load shedding is an urgent response to an emergency, hence advanced notice is not possible.

All blocks are scheduled for a two-hour outages with an additional half an hour contingency to cater for switching. Customers are only scheduled to go off once a day under stages one and two, and twice daily should a stage three emergency be declared.

During load shedding residents are urged to switch off high-demand appliances such geysers, stoves, air-conditioning and so on, so as to ensure that the waiting load at the time of restoration is not high. High waiting loads can result in a protection trip of individual circuits, which will require staff to be dispatched to the point of supply and therefore will result in an extended outage time for all customers on that circuit.

According to the site, load shedding is only implemented under extreme emergencies, and sustained load shedding over sequential days is unlikely. Residents in areas that are switched off can expect to only experience a single or, in the worst case, a few incidents of load shedding a year.

If you are experiencing a power outage, either outside your schedule time or when load shedding is not active, then it is a result of a fault on the network and not because of load shedding. Report your outage to the electricity call centre on 080 1313 1111.