City Power load-shedding chaos: areas hit 3 times between 2pm and midnight

City Power has revised the load-shedding schedule, which has been a source of public outcry in recent weeks since it took over from Eskom. 

The new schedule came into effect on Wednesday.  

The entity had issued a statement on Tuesday saying the new schedule addresses the two-hour frequent break problem, which is one of the key areas of concern for most customers.  

But on Wednesday, it appeared as if chaos continues in the city as Eskom announced stage 4 load-shedding until further notice. It said this was due to insufficient emergency reserves and generation capacity as a result of four units not returning to service as planned.

"Eskom will monitor the system and communicate should any significant changes occur," the entity said.  

However, in the city some areas are still experiencing the two-hour frequent break problem.  

According to the EskomSePush (ESP) app, one of the suburbs in Johannesburg, Mill Hill, was scheduled to be load-shed three times in a 10-hour period. This was three power outages between 2pm until midnight.  

Early this month City Power took over the management of the roll-out of load-shedding.  

It said while this decision eliminated the four consecutive hours of black-out up to stage 8, it presented a new phenomenon where the same four hours are then squeezed into a six to eight-hour time frame, giving customers a mere two-hour break in between at least once a week for some. 

"In our current load-shedding programme which will be phased out, the two-hour break problem comes into effect from as early as stage 2, and it increases in frequency when Eskom heightens stages of load-shedding. The entity has finally resolved this glitch to some extent," it said.  

City Power was expected to publish the new schedule by Wednesday, and it said customers will enjoy six to 14 hours of uninterrupted electricity supply in worst-case scenarios between stages 1 and 4, meaning the two-hour break problem will be completely done away with in those stages.  

"With the new schedule, four blocks will not be shed in stage 1 per day, with no repetition of the blocks in the same stage. In stage 2, eight blocks will be shed twice in a day and the other eight blocks will encounter load-shedding three times in the same period." 

In stage 3, 12 blocks will be load-shed twice, while the remaining four will be off three times and in stage 4, all blocks will be load-shed three times, giving customers a minimum of six hours in between.  

"For customers who are load-shed twice in a day, they will experience 14 hours of uninterrupted power supply," said the entity, informing customers that this would be an ongoing fine-tuning process which will only improve with time.

City Power urged customers to remain patient as they continue to work on a solution to the remaining challenges, particularly during higher stages of load-shedding, and indicated that the two-hour break problem will re-emerge from stages 5 to 8.  

The DA's shadow MMC of environment and infrastructure services department (EISD) in the city, Nicole van Dyk, said City Power was not managing load-shedding properly and given that the country is in stage 4, some of the areas would be load-shed four times in one day, meaning those residents will experience eight hours of load-shedding on a day.  

"The statement that we received yesterday [Tuesday], although it gave hope, desperately shows that there is a serious problem. Any plan they did on this supposedly new schedule today [Wednesday] hasn't actually come to fruition, and I don't know if it reaches the bottom levels of City Power," she said.  

Van Dyk said the entity has multiple teams, including operators who are responsible for load-shedding who would go to the substations to switch on or off. She said the operators are given permission from another team called the controller.  

"There is only one controller for the whole city on shift at a time — that is a problem.  

"Not only do those operators have to switch you on/off every two hours of load-shedding, there are multiple substations that are not on a remote system — they have to go there and do it manually. Those operators are also responsible for assisting when you have an area outage. They need to come and manage that equipment so that your lower-end electricians can work on that system," she said.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said on Wednesday that the schedule they implemented when they took over the switch in stage 4, blocks could be shed four times a day, three times a day or twice a day, depending on the date.

"On the four or three times a day, a block can have one two-hour break or two two-hour break at stage 4," he said. 

He said as it was happening in other parts of the country, the higher the stages of load-shedding meant the higher the frequency of blocks being load-shed.

"While we have resolved the two-hour glitch at lower stages, we are currently working on the solution of the higher stages from 4 to 8, to lessen the impact of load-shedding on our customers," he said. 

The entity's system control was responsible for the management of all medium-voltage and high-voltage outages as per the operating regulations for high-voltage systems, he said.

"System controllers use Scada [supervisory control and data acquisition] to monitor the system and they also rely on the field resources where there is no visibility, meaning our teams would drive around to substations to operate the network and switch on and off.

"Controllers would draw a list of stations that must be shed during load-shedding and share such a list with team leaders to allocate to operators. They would then declare operators on force link per area to attend to all outages including load shedding, which at higher stages may be a high toll impacting on the restoration of other outages."

All operating instructions are issued and captured by a controller and confirmed by an operator in the field, he added.

Gauteng Eskom spokesperson Amanda Qithi said City Power has complied with Eskom's standard that regulates all electricity distributors (licence holders) since taking over load-shedding of its own customers. 

"Eskom monitors that municipalities and City Power reduce the required load during different stages of load-shedding and that they comply with the obligations as outlined in the NRS 048-9:2019 to protect the integrity and stability of the national grid," she said. 

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