City Power to implement load limiting for longer
City Power has altered the Load Limiting intervals from the current 30 second interlude to three minutes, effective immediately.
The utility also announced that the Load Limiting schedule has been revised and shortened to between 17h15 and 18h45.
When City Power implements Load Limiting, households who are above the stipulated threshold of 21 Amps have their power cut.
The three minute cut-offs will be repeated until the household reduces its consumption to below 21 Amps, or until it has been disconnected five times. After the fifth disconnection, the household will be load shed.
The managing director of City Power, Sicelo Xulu, said that residents must not panic when they experience these prolonged shortages during Load Limiting, but rather manually disconnect energy-guzzling appliances in order to keep the lights on.
This includes manually overriding the geyser switches and disconnecting appliances from secondary dwellings.
City Power said it has uploaded load limiting capabilities to 30,000 smart meters in its areas of supply.
Residents in homes equipped with these meters should receive an SMS notification prior to load limiting. Residents not receiving the notifications can email their meter number and cellphone number to [email protected].