ESKOM has advised the EThekwini municipality that Stage One load shedding will be in place due to high demand until further notice.
EThekwini’s Communications Head, Tozi Mthethwa said the municipal load-shedding schedules are drawn up in accordance with the national guideline document (NRS 048-9) with specific consideration to technical constraints, practicality and sensitivity to local economic impact. The schedule comprises of Stage One, Stage Two and Stage Three emergencies.
Stage One is largely residential and commercial load, Stage Two includes Stage One and industrial load, and Stage Three which includes the entire area of Durban with the exclusion of strategic national resources.
“All affected Blocks are scheduled for a two hour outage with an additional half hour contingency to cater for switching on. 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,” explained Mthethwa.
She added that despite every effort made to follow the schedule, technical difficulties in restoring the load may incur 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 accordingly.
“We continue to urge residents and businesses to implement electricity saving measures at all times to help reduce constraints on the power system.
“The Municipality will provide regular updates on the status of the power system through all the media platforms,” said Mthethwa.
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. Please report your outage to the Electricity Call centre on 080 13 13 1111.
You can view the load shedding schedule here.
