Kloof extended blackouts explained

THE constant power outages after the scheduled load shedding in Kloof have sparked outrage among residents who have lodged several complaints, yet the issue continues.

Marvin Gillingwater, who resides in Fairview Road, spoke to the Highway Mail about the ongoing situation.

“The affected areas include Fairview Road, Insala Road, Fairview Place and Sykes Road. I am sure I speak for all the residents when I say that the situation has become totally unacceptable. The area is often out for hours after load shedding, and when residents call in the fault it always seems to be a problem with the substation and transformers.

“With the astronomical price we pay for rates and electricity in the area, surely this problem should be attended to as a matter of urgency. My greatest concern is that a number of the residents, including myself, boarder the train line, and this is a security risk to my family and others as the battery power that runs the electric fences sometimes is depleted, and not all of us have the luxury of a generator.”

eThekwini Municipality’s head of communications, Tozi Mthethwa, said, “During the past week, eThekwini Municipality experienced overload trip-outs at the Glamis and Schmidt substation immediately after load shedding was completed. This affected the New Germany, Wyebank and Kloof areas. The cause of the overload condition was attributed to an abnormally-configured 11kV circuit following a damaged 11kV cable. The cable itself was isolated, and we referred our Western Depot team to repair it.

“The medium voltage network is designed in such a way that faulted pieces of equipment, for example cables, can be isolated from the network and supply to affected consumers can be re-directed to alternative substations while the faulty equipment receives further attention. As the above cable faulted, isolating it and restoring supply was achieved by re-directing affected consumers’ supply from the neighbouring substation to the Glamis and Schmidt substation, which indirectly added a larger load to the substation.

“The substation itself has the capacity to manage the additional load; however, the challenge is experienced when that entire load is switched off during load shedding and switched back on all at once after load shedding. Generally, the circuit would trip or overload due to the high waiting load. After identifying this challenge, the municipality had staff on standby in the area during planned load shedding events. The damaged cable was repaired.

“We fully understand that load shedding is an inconvenience for our customers, and even more so when the circuits trip immediately after load shedding. We can assure you that we will do everything in our power to repair faults as quickly as possible and keep the network as normal as possible to minimise the effects of these events. We apologise for the inconvenience caused to customers while technicians were attending to the fault.”