Eskom grants City Power reprieve from load shedding

Following the devastating and persistent rain that wreaked havoc, state-owned enterprise Eskom has granted City Power some reprieve from load shedding.

This comes after City of Johannesburg mayor Mpho Phalatse asked the ailing parastatal to exempt the city from load shedding for three days after a significant loss of electricity.

Phalatse said the request was to allow City Power to “meet the nearing insurmountable challenge of escalating faults and outages,” owed to torrential downpours throughout Gauteng over the past week.

According to Phalatse, the reprieve is specifically for areas hardest hit by the recent of floods.

“City Power will, together with Eskom, use their discretion to decide on the areas that may be under pressure with maintenance and repair backlogs to be given some reprieve from load shedding.”

According to the City of Joburg, there are 5,000 outstanding calls logged post the flooding, which will need to be attended to, fixed and cleared over the next 72 hours of reprieve.

“I want to thank MMC Sun and City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava and their teams for their dedication and hard work during this strenuous and difficult time. We are doing everything to ensure that power is restored, and residents receive the services they pay for and expect from the city. We expect significant progress over the next few days in the repair and maintenance of affected infrastructure.. I want to further thank residents for reporting faults and for their patience as we work to stabilise service delivery operations across the city,” said Phalatse.

ALSO READ: Phalatse requests load shedding reprieve as City Power drowns in outages

Load shedding reprieve

Eskom said it remained committed to partnering and collaborating with its stakeholders to provide support

“Through collaboration between the two entities and in accordance with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) regulations, Eskom was able to assist the City during this period.”

Power restorations    

Meanwhile, City Power said its teams spread across Roodepoort have exceeded their target to repair and restore at least 50% of the outage backlogs, pushing the meter to about 75% restored.

Spokesperson Isaac Mangena said a cable fault outage affecting Radiokop feeding Wilgeheuwel Hospital had been repaired, and power fully restored.

“Ridge switching substation in Honeydew feeding Lazerpark has also been restored. There was an attempted cable theft at Ruimsig switching station feeding parts of Wilgeheuwel and Honeydew. This has been repaired and power fully restored. “

ALSO READ: Slight relief as load shedding reduced to lower stages

Jan Smuts switching station

Mangena said City Power also completed repairs at Jan Smuts switching station, and 98% power has been restored.

“Only two load centers are outstanding and cannot be restored due to lack of access.

“At Mechanical Workshop, switching station repairs have been completed after cable fault repairs. Operators will restore power to customers in Hamberg, Florida Lake, and the surroundings after load shedding,” he said.

Vandalised infrastructure

He said two vandalised mini-substations at Hammer Street in Reefhaven and Borneit Street have been dismantled and removed.

“Two new mini-substations have been brought to site and contractors are busy with the installations. We expect power to be restored tomorrow morning. Liebenberg switching station feeding Constantia Kloof will be attended to. We will update customers on the progress.”

Apology

City Power has apologised to the customers that are still without electricity.

“Our teams will remain in the area to work overnight attending to the remaining outages.  We urge those customers from the areas that we have restored who are still off to log calls so that our technicians can attend to those localised calls.  

“All the teams will remain in the area tonight and tomorrow to ensure every single customer affected is restored,” Mangena said.

ALSO READ: André de Ruyter: ‘The wrong person resigned’, says Solidarity