Energy News South Africa

Eskom takes over load shedding in Ekurhuleni following alleged non-compliance

Eskom has announced that it will be taking over the implementation of load shedding in the City of Ekurhuleni (CoE) following what it has described as the city's failure to reduce load on its customers.
Source: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters
Source: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

The city had been handling the load shedding of some customers after Eskom handed over some of its substations for management.

“The decision to take over load shedding in Ekurhuleni follows monitoring and analysis conducted by Eskom which indicate that CoE is not reducing the load as per NRS 048-9:2019,” Eskom said.

“Although Eskom notes the CoE’s technical challenges in executing load shedding, it is left with no choice but to implement load shedding for the CoE as the non-compliance puts further strain on the already constrained national grid. Failure to implement load shedding by municipalities affects the integrity and stability of the grid which may lead to higher stages of load shedding."

CoE to propose load curtailment

The City of Ekurhuleni has said it will be engaging the power utility on the matter.

“The city will be engaging Eskom not to shed some of our critical substations in areas with a high concentration of large industries, because this will not only impact the economy of the region but also threatens jobs.

“The city will be proposing load curtailment during negotiation with Eskom. Load curtailment is the load reduction obtained from customers who can reduce demand on instruction. This also means that in the event of an emergency declaration, industrial customers must be able to reduce their load by a certain percentage,” the CoE said.

Source: SAnews.gov.za

SAnews.gov.za is a South African government news service, published by the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS). SAnews.gov.za (formerly BuaNews) was established to provide quick and easy access to articles and feature stories aimed at keeping the public informed about the implementation of government mandates.

Go to: http://www.sanews.gov.za
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