‘Brace to be load-shed three or four times daily’: City Power on stage 6

Joburg power utility 'buckling' under weight of outages and fault calls

28 June 2022 - 13:38
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City Power fears its battling system will not be able to handle stage 6 load-shedding, should it be implemented. File photo.
City Power fears its battling system will not be able to handle stage 6 load-shedding, should it be implemented. File photo.
Image: Phathu Luvhengo

After Eskom's announcement of load-shedding possibly being escalated to stage 6 on Tuesday evening, City Power Johannesburg says it is not ready.

Eskom management said earlier on Tuesday it is meeting organised labour to try to resolve the wage deadlock disrupting its ability to staff its power stations.

While it said stage 6 load-shedding means at least six hours of outages in a 24-hour cycle, city administrations have different ways of implementing this. City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said this means it will have to add more blocks to the schedule.

“We will have six blocks instead of four load-shed at the same time. While the outages will remain at two hours, customers should brace to be load-shed three or four times daily,” Mangena said.

He said the entity is concerned, as some of its ageing substations cannot handle stage 4.

“We are not ready for stage 6,” Mangena told TimesLIVE.

He said they are already buckling, with stretched resources and outage calls shooting through the roof.

“We were at around 5,000 [calls] last night due to multiple faults caused by load-shedding. We are trying everything, including beefing up resources in our service delivery centres with more operators added to ensure we respond in time, with limited delays during restorations,” Mangena said.

“We do not, for safety reasons, do planned maintenance during load-shedding. So the longer it drags on, the more problems we will have in future with unmaintained infrastructure.

“With Eskom’s unprotected strike seemingly far from over, we are preparing for the worst as City Power, with stage 6 or even 8 punted if no solution is found soon.”

Load-shedding stages explained by the Cape Town metro.
Load-shedding stages explained by the Cape Town metro.
Image: City of Cape Town

The City of Cape Town said it would try to mitigate the impact of stage 6 load-shedding, if it was implemented, as much as possible by using its reserves, primarily garnered via the use of the Steenbras hydro pumped storage scheme. 

Cape Town’s MMC for energy, Beverley van Reenen, said: “Customers can help by reducing power use, especially in the evening and mornings. Flatten the peak by delaying the use of electrical appliances to non-peak times and switching off non-essential electrical appliances.

“Geysers use the bulk of household energy and reducing the temperature of the geyser to 60ºC or making sure the geyser is on a timer and only active for an hour or two per day is a crucial step to reduce energy use and make sure we are able to build some reserves.”

TimesLIVE

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