As cold weather continues and load-shedding intensifies, the battle to keep the lights on between planned outages is raging.
Large parts of Johannesburg remained without electricity on Thursday thanks to numerous failures to restore power after the scheduled two-and-a-half-hour planned outages on Wednesday afternoon and evening.
Anger and frustration mounted as City Power notices, ward councillor updates and repeated explanations for the situation flooded Twitter, suburban Facebook pages, WhatsApp and other community groups.
“City Power is making arrangements for backfeeding to balance the loads, load-shedding schedules for various suburbs including the Randburg depot which causes delays,” said DA councillor Devon Steenkamp for ward 134, which encompasses some Randburg suburbs that were still without power almost 20 hours after being load-shed.
Efforts to reach City Power for comment were unsuccessful. However, updates on Twitter listed numerous causes of the ongoing problems. “To be communicated on upon the outcome of investigations”, “blown mini substation” (in Roosevelt Park), “burnt mini sub station” (in Kya Sands) and “burnt pole mounted transformer” (in Allandale) topped by numerous repeats of “cable fault”, “overload”, “vandalism” and “not yet determined” in various suburbs.
City Power’s Twitter feed on Thursday was filled with queries from anxious customers, asking for feedback despite ongoing notifications that “estimated time of restoration will be communicated in two-hourly updates”.
“When will the power be restored to Bromhof? We have been load-shedding for 15+ hours and you are starting with a new round again. Crippling us and murdering us with load-shedding,” was the unanswered appeal by resident Chris Fischer.
The administrators of the Boskruin & Bromhof Community Group, also overwhelmed by the outrage, informed frustrated members that “posts that are rude and aggressive asking about the power situation will not be approved. Please make use of your personal Facebook page for rudeness and aggression, not ours. Many thanks.”
Steenkamp said he understood that ward residents were frustrated by having organised their lives around planned outages “only for power trips to mess things up”, explaining this amounted to a balancing issue.
“It’s like when you switch on a car, the revs go high and then it stabilises. It’s a balancing issue that can be helped if people switch off their geysers, pools and large appliances so that when the power is switched back on, the demand is not so high that the system just trips,” he said, explaining he was trying to have load limits for the affected areas raised so that power could be restored.
“The good news is that we get our new budget in July and I will be able to share plans then for how we are planning to fix things,” he said.
Meanwhile frustrated residents continued to complain, referring to the ongoing unsuccessful efforts to restore power as “unacceptable” and “flogging a dead horse” and explanations as “implausible excuses”.
Meanwhile, community hub DC Coffee Club in Fourways continued to take its usual positive outlook on local challenges.
“Yeah, things are miff and messy guys, but let’s try to wear our positivity like a stylish jean pant. Have you ever considered that the grass may in fact be greener on the other side, due to the amount of horse manure? Let’s smile, be thankful and make the most of every moment. Now back to the dark passage with my sparkler I go,” said owner and founder Neil Golding.
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