City Power faces glitch in load shedding transition from Eskom

Joburg’s City Power says its plan to take over load shedding operations from Eskom has been successful, but a “glitch” means its customers will have a weekly session when their electricity will be off for four hours out of eight.

But it has said this frustration experienced by residents was a temporary pain, although it cannot say when that pain will end.

Eskom handed over operations to City Power

Eskom handed over operations to City Power, effective from Monday, in a move that would see residents only subjected to two-hour blackouts at a time, even on stage 5, under the new schedule.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said this phenomenon of four-hour outages out of eight hours – in two sets of two hours each – would happen in all areas four times a month.

“On Monday and Tuesday Block 12 had its share of the problem, so it will not happen until next month,” Mangena said.

ALSO READ: Joburg load shedding to be limited to two-hour slots as City Power takes over from Eskom

“Everyone will go through the same pain, but it’s not like it will happen on Sunday then again next week. In-between, residents will realise that they will have more lights.”

Mangena said one of the most important things about the new block system was that they were able to exclude businesses from load shedding.

He said the network on its own was not built for load shedding but for just providing electricity. However, currently businesses and social services were embedded in the same network.

A lot of scepticism about City Power

Energy expert Chris Yelland said a lot of people’s experience with City Power was not good and there was a lot of scepticism about whether the utility was up to the task they have set themselves.

“They have been doing load shedding in certain parts of Joburg so it’s not like they do not have the capability of doing it, but we all know that they are under-resourced and under significant financial stress,” Yelland said.

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“There is a lot to doubt… not on whether they are capable of doing it but on whether they have the necessary resources at their disposal to do it. They are taking on a lot of responsibility in this regard and we will have to see whether they can deliver the goods.”

He said the other matter was that there was a lot of misinformation by City Power that things were going to get a lot better and people would have less load shedding now that they had taken over.

“My view is that it is completely wrong and we are not going to have less load shedding because of City Power, not at all,” he said.

“Eskom gives a command to City Power to reduce demand by a certain amount and if they exempt certain businesses from load shedding. What it means is that the rest of us, who are nonbusiness customers, are going to have to bear more of the burden.

“If business is exempt, it means it’s going to be worse for the rest of us. The suggestion that you can do some load shedding and not for the rest of the month, that is not correct.

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“There is in my view a lot of serious misinformation and in every likelihood, things are not going to get better at all.”

‘City Power shouldn’t have taken on this responsibility’

Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse chief executive Wayne Duvenage said with all the challenges at City Power, including its inefficiencies and workload, it should never have taken on this responsibility.

“Thus far, they have created more frustration from the mixed-up load shedding schedules and poor communication to residents. It was working well the way it was managed before, why did they change something that was not broken?” Duvenage asked.

Power Park in Soweto has been one of those areas that were excluded by City Power from load shedding because of being close to essential infrastructure.

Resident disappointed by move

A resident and businesswoman, Noloxo Dlamini, who runs student accommodation, said she was disappointed by the move.

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Dlamini said because City Power would be removing them from the essential services line and putting them on the residential lines, her business would suffer because not having load shedding was one of the things that attracted students to her property.

“City Power recently put in prepaid meter boxes which we are still getting used to and now they want to bring us load shedding. It will kill our business and inconvenience the students,” she said.

“The students liked this place because there was no load shedding and it is a walking distance to the University of Johannesburg.”