City of Joburg rejects Eskom load shedding

The City of Johannesburg says it rejects Eskom’s latest scheduled load shedding and has threatened legal action against the power utility.

The city pointed out in a statement on Saturday evening (23 October), that it recently secured an additional power supply capacity of 220 MW from privately owned Kelvin Power station that qualifies it for an exemption from stage 1 and 2 of load shedding,

Eskom resumed stage 2 load shedding, which is set to continue through to Monday at 05h00.

The city, through its municipal power utility, City Power, had previously written a letter to Eskom after it concluded the additional capacity power purchase agreement with the Kelvin Power Station, to notify the national power utility of the added capacity.

City Power will not be #Loadshedding as per @Eskom_SA directive!

— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) October 23, 2021

“When the city first reached out to Eskom to indicate our additional supply capacity, we were asked for proof in this regard, which we accordingly presented,” said Johannesburg mayor Mpho Moerane.

The mayor said the city presented proof of its additional capacity, as asked by Eskom. However, it did not hear back from the state company until the load shedding announcement on Saturday evening.

City rejects @Eskom_SA latest scheduled loadshedding

This is after the City recently secured additional power supply capacity of 220 MW from privately owned Kelvin Power station that qualifies it from exemption from stage 1&2 of load shedding #JoburgServices ^NB pic.twitter.com/PHlB5QY4lv

— City of Joburg (@CityofJoburgZA) October 23, 2021

“If how Eskom treats the city is anything to go by, then it is understandable why Johannesburg residents have so many complaints about the national utility’s customer service,” Moerane said.

“Therefore, the city is now prepared to go the legal route to halt Eskom’s blanket heavy-handedness against the people of Johannesburg, especially those whose Eskom accounts are up to date.”

Read: Is this the suburb with the worst electricity outages in South Africa?