Joburg cannot cope with load-shedding – City Power
With over 4 000 outages calls recorded since the implementation of Stage 4 load-shedding, City Power says that Johannesburg cannot cope.
While the possibility of Stage 6 load-shedding looms, the City of Johannesburg has admitted that it cannot cope with Stage 4 load-shedding.
Stage 4 load-shedding was implemented by Eskom on June 24 and is expected to remain in place until June 29.
According to City Power, Stage 4 has put astronomical pressure on its resources with many of its substations unable to return during restoration periods. This has left hundreds of households without electricity for extended periods of time. “Load-shedding has undesirable effects on the infrastructure which, by its nature was never meant to be switched on and off at short intervals, and comes with it added financial pressures that we did not budget for.”
“The recent ramped up bout of load-shedding comes at the time when City Power was already overstretched by increase in capacity demand due to inclement winter weather, while battling rampant cable theft and illegal connections.”
The entity added that over the weekend of June 25, it received an excess of 3 000 calls relating to outages. By 17:00 on June 27, City Power was dealing with just over 4 700 outage calls with over 2 000 of them reported in the 24 hours prior.
A majority of these calls originated from the Hursthill area (over 1 700 calls), followed by Lenasia (over 850 calls) and Randburg (over 750 calls). “We are still struggling in areas such as Emmerantia, Greenside, Linden, Roosevelt, Witpoortjie, Florida, Parkhurst, Cresta, Honeydew, Fleurhof, Tshepisong, Booysens Reserve, Craighall, Ennerdale, Blairgowrie, Olivenhout/Northriding, Bordeaux, among others.”
City Power added that, apart from the constant outages caused by in-rush currents, it is battling with multiple cable faults, vandalism, over-loading due to the cold weather and cable theft.
“Just to give you an idea, since Friday [June 24] until this morning [June 17] we had 26 cable theft incidents with one arrest.”
While the city will be increasing resources at its service delivery centres, which include additional operators, customers are urged to also assist by reducing the in-rush current by switching off heavy appliances during load-shedding.
#LoadsheddingUpdates #Stage4 #Loadshedding is in progress
City Power customers are urged to switch off all non-essential electrical appliances during #loadshedding to avoid power surges when the power returns. ^LP
— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) June 27, 2022
These include geysers, pool pumps, heaters, stoves which can be switched back on, gradually, a few minutes after restorations.
“We are aware of the inconvenience this is causing to the customers and the pressure it puts the councillors and City of Johannesburg regional offices, and our depots, and we appeal for patience and cooperation as the technicians work on repairs backlogs.”
Related articles:
https://sandtonchronicle.co.za/299057/city-power-ramps-up-efforts-to-curb-illegal-connections/
https://sandtonchronicle.co.za/316389/planned-power-interuption-set-for-bryanston/
