Local power cuts not an Eskom issue
Zululanders have been affected by power cuts in Richards Bay’s Birdswood and Brackenham suburbs.
DESPITE Eskom’s statements that no load shedding was expected this week, Zululanders have in fact been affected by power cuts in Richards Bay’s Birdswood and Brackenham suburbs.
But the City of uMhlathuze indicated these interruptions were both unrelated to the collapse of Eskom’s main silo on Saturday.
Brackenham experienced a planned outage from 8am on Tuesday until 2.30am on Wednesday for the replacement of a transformer, while Birdswood had an unexpected 15 minute cut at 11.30am on Tuesday owing to a technical issue.
Meanwhile, Eskom still urges the public to use electricity sparingly while the power utility works on ramping up its capacity after the weekend’s catastrophe at its Mpumalanga plant.
‘At Majuba, the team is working around the clock to recover capacity at the power station and their efforts have already spared the country from load shedding on Monday and Tuesday,’ Eskom said in a statement.
The utility has so far increased its generating capacity to 1 200MW.
But the system will still take significant strain today (Thursday) from 6pm to 10pm.
‘Please switch off geysers, air-conditioners, pool pumps and all non-essential appliances to prevent the need for rotational load shedding,’ said Eskom.
‘While we will make every effort to avoid load shedding, we are hopeful that by applying these measures, coupled with support from all electricity consumers, we will achieve the required load reduction necessary to protect the national grid.’
uMhlathuze emergency load shedding schedule HERE
