Load shedding warning as another cold front hits South Africa
Joburg power utility City Power has warned customers of added stress on its grid – and the national grid – due to colder temperatures hitting the country.
The group said that temperatures have dropped significantly in Joburg as the latest cold front has hit the region and warned that if customers do not manage their energy demand, higher stages of load shedding could be expected.
“Over a week ago, inclement weather conditions coupled with highers stages of load shedding – resulted in a number of our Substations tripping from overcurrent, particularly during peak hours,” it said.
“We urge customers to use electricity prudently to avoid facing similar outages for lengthier periods in these frosty conditions.”
The South African Weather Service has warned that the cold weather is likely to persist into the weekend.
The previous cold front that hit the country (10 July) saw user energy demand spike, forcing Eskom to push load shedding to stage 6. The escalation was a combination of higher demand and the utility using up its reserves.
Before the cold front, customer demand was sitting around 30,000MW. During the cold front this escalated to 34,000MW. At the same time, Eskom’s reserves were depleted and the group suffered 11 unit breakdowns, cutting supply.
Eskom’s latest figures show that the group is still fighting to maintain a balance between supply and demand. Energy availability on Thursday was 26,377MW, while total demand hit 31,314MW, necessitating 4,203MW (equivalent to stage 5) load shedding.
If user demand escalates further, higher stages of load shedding may be necessary.
“While City Power has put measures in place to mitigate against the impact of extreme whether conditions on our network, we urge customers to play their part in helping us keep the lights on during this period,” the Joburg utility said.
Cable theft
While City Power appeals to customers to keep their electricity usage down, the group has also drawn a hard line on vandalism and criminality surrounding its infrastructure.
In a separate statement this week, the utility said that it will no longer reconnect and replace stolen cables free of charge, saying it is now up to communities and customers to safeguard and protect cables.
This is due to the city seeing a sharp increase in cases of vandalism and theft, in which it had to fork over close to R200 million to replace cables.
“According to Section 21 of the NRS Standard by-laws, the property owner is responsible for applying for the installation of a service connection. Further, the service connection must be installed at the expense of the owner,” it said.
“The amount spent on service cables last year clearly demonstrates the problem of service cable theft in our areas. The problem is further highlighted by our cut-off raids of illegal connections in most informal settlements where hundreds of tonnes of services cables are retrieved.”
City Power noted that hotspots for cable theft and vandalism include Motsoaledi Informal Settlement, Alexandra, Fleurhof, Tshelisong, Princess, Lenasia, Eldos, Pennyville, Matholeville, and Vlakfontein, among others.
“We would also like to point out that due to continued vandalism, City Power is finding it difficult to
keep up with demand not only for service cables but also for other infrastructure, including transformers, joints, and minisubstations,” it said.
“While City Power does its best to invest in private security and work together with law enforcement agencies, we believe that the solution lies with communities making a commitment to safeguarding infrastructure, especially within their private properties, using resources such as patrollers, CPFs, neighbourhood watch, and working with local SAPS.”
Read: Eskom pushes load shedding higher as 8 units go down – here’s the schedule
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