- Eskom says it has granted City Power some reprieve from loadshedding.
- This is fulfilling a request Johannesburg’s mayor made of the utility earlier this week.
- Eskom does not say which areas will be exempt from loadshedding, other than it will be in areas most affected by the recent storms and flooding.
Earlier this week, City of Johannesburg executive mayor Mpho Phalatse sent an urgent request to Eskom, pleading with the utility to grant a loadshedding break to Johannesburg.
This was as City Power, Johannesburg’s electric infrastructure company, was utterly unable to deal with the backlog of breakdowns and outages affecting areas across the city, from Randburg to Roodepoort, to Alexandra, and more.
Loadshedding impedes repairs to this infrastructure. Often times, teams will have to stop repairs for loadshedding to take place. City Power also says that high level loadshedding, such as Stage 5 and Stage 6 causes damage to its systems.
Thousands of people were without electricity outside of the usually scheduled loadshedding. Some areas were bereft of power for days at a time as storms and floods rocked the city and destroyed power infrastructure.
On Thursday, Eskom announced that it had granted City Power this loadshedding reprieve in areas that, “experienced significant loss of electricity in large parts of Johannesburg.”
Eskom grants City Power some reprieve from loadshedding pic.twitter.com/o8tDYpu2Ku
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) December 15, 2022
The statement, posted on the utility’s official Twitter account, is incredibly vague. It states that, “the reprieve follows the utility’s request for areas that were severely affected by the recent floods and storms which resulted in loss of electricity, to be excluded from loadshedding.”
It mentions that this reprieve was enabled through collaboration between itself and City Power, and was in accordance to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) regulations.
But it does not outline which these areas are, nor how intensive the flood damage has to be for areas to be exempt.
Roodepoort was particularly affected by power outages and suffered road damage from the flooding, and City Power’s latest updates indicate that some of the regions are still being affected by major outages.
#OutageUpdate #CityPowerUpdate #JoburgServices #JoburgUpdates #RegionC
Teams will this morning continue the work to complete the remaining major outages in Roodepoort
area while also clearing the localized individual calls. ^OS pic.twitter.com/K36KtPI3NK— @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) December 15, 2022
“We are aware of some of the customers who either were not restored with the rest of the customers in the same affected suburb, or the power tripped immediately after restorations,” the company said.
People in Helderkruin, parts of Witpoortjie, and parts of Wilgeheuwel, among others, do not have power. It is possible that these regions will be earmarked for loadshedding exemptions for repairs to take place unimpeded.
Overall, the company says that it is happy that the Roodepoort grid is starting to stabilise. Hopefully with the loadshedding exemption more of the city’s grid will begin to right itself.
[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]
