Residents and businesses urged to unplug electricity-hungry equipment before load-shedding ends to reduce trips
City Power battling against the degradation of existing infrastructure that is taking a beating from repeatedly being turned on and off which causes a multitude of negative consequences.
The hours of power outages in addition to load-shedding in some communities are becoming unbearable and community members are angry.
It is becoming more frequent that substations trip after periods of load-shedding adding additional hours on top of extended outages by Eskom.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said, “Tripping means an interruption of electricity supply which occurs when ‘protective relays’ sense a fault. The circuit breaker trips in order to isolate the faulty lines from the rest of the healthy sections. This happens in order to avoid serious damage to the power infrastructure.”
This he said: can be due to overloads, equipment failure, cable faults or other factors.
To bring the substation back online from an overload-triggered trip, a team must first balance the load.
“That is why even after power has been duly restored after load-shedding, some areas will remain off until the in-rush current subsides. Hursthill substation is currently in the process of bringing back plants that have been out of service in order to balance the load without triggering further trips and to stabilize the grid.”
In some instances, an overload results in costly damage to the infrastructure. On April 10, a Ring Main Unit burnt at the Northcliff distributor due to post-load-shedding overload. “This is one example of why it takes longer for power to be restored. Additionally, materials required for repairs are increasingly becoming difficult to source,” said Mangena.
He described load-shedding as having a negative impact on infrastructure. The infrastructure which, by its nature, was never meant to be switched on and off at short regular intervals. “For that reason, many of our mini-substations, pole-mounted transformers and transformers also often catch fire or fail post-load-shedding.”
Resident Andrew van Wyk described how his work situation is affected. “I work from home and have just had a 30-hour outage that was caused by a tripping substation. Literally, two minutes after load-shedding ended we were hit with another outage. This is very frustrating as we cannot afford costly power backups that allow us to work through load-shedding. Fortunately, we have gas for cooking. Our main concern, besides the office equipment not working, is the fridge and geyser that isn’t working.
Another resident, Mukhtaar Areff said that he manages a building with about 30 residents who have not had power for two weeks. “It went off post-load-shedding and City Power does not come out at all, despite us logging tickets every day. We are a failed state and only bribery and corruption get anything resolved! We are trying to run a clean business but that’s getting us nowhere.”
Lara Visnenza-de Beer was angered by the unplanned interruptions. “It’s impossible to plan around load-shedding with all the unplanned outages and trips. We have spent multiple days in a row without power. Leaving us with no communication for work due to flat phones, laptops and power banks. Our food just rots and we cannot cook or afford constant takeaways. We don’t have the funds for an inverter, solar panels or generator. It’s a nightmare.”
City Power loses roughly R3.6m a day due to load-shedding which is only predicted to worsen according to the new Minister of Electricity. At the current rate of trips and failures, it’s going to be an exceptionally difficult winter,” said Kgosientsho Ramokgopa recently.
City Power urges customers to unplug heavy equipment like geysers, heaters, stoves, pool pumps, UPS or solar batteries prior to load-shedding ending in order to enable the load to settle first before plugging them back on.
Resident Edzard Bosch said, “The worst part of load-shedding is when we are off for four hours or more. When power returns most people don’t turn off or unplug their high-energy consumption equipment such as geysers, pumps and inverters. This causes trips meaning whole areas can be without power for days at a time. This can be reduced if the community cooperates by turning off their power until 10 mins after power returns.
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