Durban - Load shedding is set to resume in eThekwini from August 1.
On Monday, the City confirmed and eThekwini will be re-added to the load shedding schedule following a reprieve as Durban recovered from the recent heavy rains in April and May.
"As the country scrambles to avert a total black out, it has become necessary that eThekwini starts contributing to load shedding, hence the re-introduction of load shedding in eThekwini," the City said in a statement.
EThekwini and Eskom are in continuous engagements to avert any further risks on the City’s electrical grid following extensive flood damage to electrical infrastructure.
"As some substations are still out of commission and many parts of the network require re-configuration, the existing load shedding schedules had to be amended.
EThekwini has therefore prepared a temporary schedule that will be effective for stages 4 and higher. This schedule will be in use until further notice. Certain areas will be excluded from load shedding because of highly compromised networks," the City said.
Customers are urged to reduce their load especially during peak times. All high consumption appliances such as geysers, stoves, heaters must be switched off during power outages to prevent overload tripping when the power does return.
An updated schedule can be found here.
Meanwhile, Eskom load shedding could be on the cards for the rest of the country outages at the Kriel power station.
In a statement issued on Monday, Eskom said during the early hours of this (Monday) morning there were two electrical faults in quick succession in the high voltage yard at Kriel Power Station.
“The fault, which appears to be related to the heavy mist conditions experienced at the time is under investigation. The first fault caused units 1, 2 and 3 of the power station to trip, while the second fault tripped units 4 and 5. Unit 6 was off-line at the time,” Eskom said
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