PRETORIA – Joburg power utility, City Power, has apologised to customers in the northern areas of Randburg after electricity to their community was not returned at the end of scheduled load shedding periods.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said several of its substations, controlled from Eskom’s side, were yesterday “delayed to be restored, sending panic to our customers”.
“They include Randburg substation feeding Bromhof, Northriding, Randpark Ridge which was scheduled to return late afternoon (yesterday), and Bryanston, Fontainebleau, Northriding, Beyers Naude, Harley, Windsor and Morningside substations scheduled for restorations at 8pm,” Mangena said.
“We are working with Eskom to address the delays in restorations, and appeal to our customers to bear with us.”
Yesterday, due to a further shortage of generation capacity, Eskom announced that stage 4 load shedding had been implemented from noon until 5am on Friday.
Stage 2 load shedding would kick-in until 5am on Saturday. Eskom said the implementation of stage 4 load shedding is “no cause for alarm as the power system remains to be effectively controlled’’.
On Tuesday morning, Eskom had announced that stage 2 load shedding was being implemented from 9am until 5am on Saturday.
“Over the past 24 hours, a unit each at Medupi, Kusile and Matla power stations tripped, while a unit each at Lethabo and Arnot power stations were forced to shut down,’’ the power utility said.
“This constrained the power system further, requiring extensive use of emergency reserves and therefore hampering the recovery of these reserves.”
City Power has highlighted that the implementation of stage 4 load shedding was putting a strain on their operations.
“It must be mentioned that stage 4 of the load shedding is really stretching our resources because of the frequency of switching on and off, with some done manually,” Mangena said.
“We apologise for the inconvenience caused to customers.”
IOL