Some blocks are brighter than others: the unequal implementation of load-shedding

While the ongoing power crisis has most consumers in a froth, some blocks are experiencing more and longer outages than others. And while load-shedding is supposed to be implemented equally across the country, this is not the experience of individuals and businesses.

Some consumers have been repeatedly hit by overly-long outages and repeated unscheduled blackouts, some areas have been experiencing little or no power interruptions at all — a reality that has been denied by those in charge.

According the various authorities, load-shedding is drawn up in accordance with the national guideline document — the NRS 048-9 — dictated by Eskom and duly implemented or farmed out to individual municipalities who have the power to make specific considerations to technical constraints, practicalities and sensitivity to local economic impact.

This means schedules can differ across the country in terms of number and length of outages, but the down hours have to remain constant according to the current stage.

Most municipalities work on two-hour blocks, with an added 30-minutes for switching on and off. But once load-shedding kicks into higher stages — six and upwards — some two-hour blocks are extended to four hours. In stage 6, Johannesburg consumers and businesses without backup power have to endure up to 10 hours of load-shedding a day.

But this is not happening everywhere around the country. In some parts of Nelson Mandela Bay in the Eastern Cape, for example, some suburbs are subjected to only one or two outages per day — none more than two hours long — even in stage 6.

It depends on at what stage we are load-shedding. At the higher stages we shed more groups more often, and we only work in two hour blocks which may occasionally end up being one after the other.

—  Nelson Mandela Bay municipal spokesperson, Mthubanzi Mniki

Municipal spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki said this was not intentional and that load-shedding was being implemented according to national instructions across all areas in the metro.

“It depends on at what stage we are load-shedding. At the higher stages we shed more groups more often, and we only work in two-hour blocks which may occasionally end up being one after the other. Sometimes when an area has been badly inconvenienced we try to ease the strain for a while — but you will see that in a few days it goes straight back to normal,” he said, explaining why some areas remained lit for many more hours than others.

In Cape Town, while load-shedding is done in line with Eskom’s rules, implementation is tailored to specific areas at specific times to manage the city as best as possible within the constraints.

“The city follows Eskom’s load-shedding requirements and manages exclusions and its own generation within these parameters,” explained energy MMC Beverley van Reenen.

“Some areas in the City of Cape Town are supplied with electricity directly by Eskom and others by the city ... which continues to do all it can to protect its customers from a stage or two of Eskom’s load-shedding where possible, primarily through the management of the Steenbras Hydro Pumped Storage Scheme. When protection is possible, it often means city customers are at different stages than Eskom customers. The load-shedding protection is also to the benefit of everyone in Cape Town as it assists in protecting certain critical infrastructure and service provision [hospitals, water and wastewater] to all residents irrespective of their supply area,” she said.

This meant exemptions could be made for major hospitals, major central business districts with high concentrations of people and vehicles, and areas where there are major crowds gathered for specific events where the load-shedding stages allow and were conducted fairly.

In Joburg many have been complaining about perceived different treatment with some suburbs undoubtedly getting a raw deal. However, according to authorities, the unequal treatment is less about unfair implementation of the rules and more about vandalism, theft and failing infrastructure in old areas — compounded by unexplained Eskom behaviour.

“Load-shedding schedules are applied evenly across the city, it’s just that some newer areas work smoothly through, while others have repeated problems for many reasons,” explained Keneilwe Sebola, acting spokesperson for environment and infrastructure services MMC Michael Sun.

These reasons, she said, included that not only did cable thieves have sight of load-shedding schedules, but the longer outages in stage 6 meant they now had four rather than two hour intervals in which to steal dormant copper cables.

“The problems differ in each area. In Roodepoort, daily we see at least two substations in that area are vandalised. And on top of that, infrastructure in the area is very old. City Power has its own stock of resources and plans accordingly. But a transformer, which is supposed to have a lifespan of 20 years, is repeatedly vandalised and switched on and off, and we find ourselves going through them in six months,” she said.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena confirmed that treatment was equal, explaining: “All municipalities together with Eskom agreed on a standard load-shedding schedule which is what’s being implemented by City Power.”

He said areas experiencing severely increased outages were being addressed with Eskom management.

“I can confirm that Soweto is more affected than City Power customers as Eskom also implements load rotation on top of load-shedding,” Mangena said.

Difficulties in restoring power efficiently were increasing because of the failure of backup batteries at major substations, which sometimes don’t have enough time to properly recharge in higher stages.

Areas in Durban, such as Musgrave, have also seen minimal disruptions to power supply according to the Eskom se Push schedules, sourced from the municipalities. However, efforts to reach eThekwini officials for a response were unsuccessful.

Department of public enterprises spokesperson Richard Mantu said he could not comment on the variances in load-shedding because “unfortunately the department is a shareholder representative” and load-shedding is “operational in nature” and therefore falls under Eskom and municipalities.

Eskom’s media desk did not respond to questions about the fair implementation of load-shedding.