ETHEKWINI Municipality has released a new load-shedding schedule which will be implemented from Tuesday, 7 April 2015. Officials are urging residents to make themselves familiar with the new schedule so they can be prepared in the event of load-shedding.
Load-shedding becomes necessary when the national electrical demand on the network is greater than Eskom’s capacity to supply.
Eskom’s National Control Centre monitors its supply and demand ability on a 24/7 basis and issues instructions to maintain this balance to prevent the national grid from collapsing. Load-shedding is an urgent response to an emergency, hence advanced notice is not possible.
EThekwini Municipality has reviewed the load-shedding schedule in an attempt to meet the new 24/7 requirements as prescribed by Eskom. The new schedule addresses some of the issues raised by customers and attempts to minimise interruptions and introduce more fairness in the allocation of blocks. It has taken into consideration technical constraints, practicality and sensitivity to local economic impact. The new schedule will also reduce the incidence of customer Block changes due to network faults.
The new schedule consists of four stages for the most likely period of load-shedding (6am to 10pm Monday to Saturday) as follows:-
Stage 1: Residential/Commercial Blocks – load-shed once every second day
Stage 2: Residential/Commercial Blocks – load-shed once every day
Stage 3: Residential/Commercial/Industrial Blocks – load-shed once every day
Stage 4: Residential/Commercial/Industrial Blocks – load-shed once every day and twice every second day
Sometimes, technical difficulties in restoring electricity may occur and should a customer remain off for a substantial amount of time after the Block has been scheduled to be restored, then that incident must be treated as a fault and reported to the Electricity Contact Centre on 080 13 13 1111.
During load-shedding, customers are urged to switch off high-demand appliances like geysers, stoves, air-conditioning etc. to ensure the waiting load at the time of restoration is not high. Switching off sensitive electrical appliances before power is restored also prevents the risk of voltage spikes when power returns.
The new load-shedding schedule can be found on www.durban.gov.za, click on the load shedding banner.
