City Power denies it imposed stage 8 load shedding on residents

City Power has denied reports that it incorrectly implemented stage 8 of load shedding instead of stage 6 this past weekend as alleged by some customers.

The country was plunged into stage 6 load shedding last week after Eskom lost five generating units and needed to replenish emergency reserves.

Several residents, including energy analyst Chris Yelland, took to X over the weekend to complain about the number of hours they were left without electricity.

They said on Saturday they had between 10 and 11 hours of load shedding, which is more than what should be experienced during stage 6.

No stage 8

Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa laid the blame squarely at City Power, but the regional power utility’s spokesperson Isaac Mangena denied responsibility.

“All municipalities and Eskom are guided by Nersa’s code of practice, NRS 048-09, when implementing load shedding. This is for equitable distribution of the burden of rotational power supply cuts in order to collectively save the national grid from potentially collapsing.

“Under the code, municipalities are required to give 5% of shedded power supply to Eskom, per stage. During stage 1 of load shedding, City Power gives Eskom 120 megawatts of electricity per block through load shedding,” Mangena said.

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Mangena cited an example; saying on Friday, blocks 13, 2, 7, 12, 9, 14 were shed between 12h00 and 14h30.

Thereafter, block 16, 11, 6, 1, 4, 15 were shed between 14h00 and 16h30.

“At 16h00 -18h30 same day block 14, 9, 8, 3, 2, 13, with some repeating from the first load shedding. It is worth noting that each block contributes 120MW during each episode of load shedding,” Mangena said.

Load shedding

Mangena said to comply with the regulation, City Power has divided the load shedding programme as follows:

Stage 1

Customers are load shed once in a day.

Stage 2

Customers are load shed either once or twice.

Stage 3

Customers are load shed twice or three times.

Stage 4

All customers are load shed three times.

Stage 5

Customers are either load shed three or four times.

Stage 6

Customers are either load shed four or five times in a day.

“For customers who are load shed four times, under City Power load shedding schedule, they go off for 8-hours. For those who are load shed five times, they go off for 10-hours.

“This only occurs in higher stages of load shedding. Throughout all this, industrial and business customers, and essential services are excluded from load shedding which ensure that we save jobs, investments, and lives,” Mangena said.

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