Over the years, the City of Cape Town has managed to mitigate the effects of load shedding for its customers, reducing the stages of load shedding for residents to mostly one or two stages.
For instance, if the country is at Stage 3, those living in Cape Town would only experience Stage 1 load shedding.
However, lately, there have been questions arising about why City-supplied customers are not being 'protected' by reduced load shedding.
The City of Cape Town had this to say: “We continue to do our best to protect customers as far as possible.
“Eskom load shedding at non-stop high stages unfortunately impacts the degree of protection possible. We also have to ensure that we build reserves to help with the week ahead.”
In January, the City of Cape Town announced an independent power tender with the aim of mitigating the impact of load shedding and reducing its reliance on Eskom. The municipality stated that the latest tender is in line with its plan to add independent power to the City’s grid.
Mayoral committee member for energy, Beverley van Reenen, said the City intends to procure power from existing generators in line with its objective of mitigating load shedding over time.
Van Reenen added that a two-pronged procurement structure will be followed, allowing bidders to supplement dispatchable/reserve power with an option for a self-dispatchable component (with the latter being at a lower cost than the prevailing Eskom Megaflex Tariff).
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