Ekurhuleni acknowledges Eskom’s load-shedding obligations
Eskom has taken over the city's full load-shedding operation.
Effective from July 24, Eskom is directly load-shedding City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) customers in all the substations that were previously handed over to the municipality to manage.
According to Eskom, the CoE failed to comply by not adhering to 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 follows monitoring and analysis conducted by Eskom which indicate that the CoE is not reducing the load as per NRS 048-9:2019.
Eskom has on numerous occasions engaged the municipality regarding its failure to load-shed its customers. The power utility has taken over this role of load-shedding the CoE’s customers following its contravention of the requirements of the standard in the past.
At the time, the CoE was only permitted to load-shed all the substations that feed critical loads. Subsequently, upon the CoE’s request, Eskom handed over the implementation of load-shedding of all CoE customers to the municipality.
Although Eskom notes the CoE’s technical challenges in executing load-shedding, it is left with no choice but to implement load-shedding for the CoE as the non-compliance puts further strain on the already constrained national grid.
Failure to implement load-shedding by municipalities affects the integrity and stability of the grid, which may lead to higher stages of load-shedding.
Eskom appeals to members of the public to assist in reducing demand by switching off non-essential appliances such as geysers and pool pumps as this lowers demand and helps in alleviating the pressure on the power system and contributes to lower stages of load-shedding.
The CoE confirmed it recently received a letter from Eskom informing the municipality that all customers will now be affected by load-shedding in line with the new directive.
In the meantime, the city will be engaging Eskom not to shed some of its critical substations in areas with a high concentration of large industries, because this will not only impact the economy of the region but also threatens jobs.
“We are an economic hub and therefore we are looking forward to positive engagements with the power utility, bearing in mind the valuable contribution of industry to the economy,” explained city spokesperson Zweli Dlamini.
The city will be proposing load curtailment during negotiation with Eskom.
Load curtailment is the load reduction obtained from customers who can reduce demand on instruction.
This also means that in the event of an emergency declaration, industrial customers must be able to reduce their load by a certain percentage.
