Rain, power cuts hit Cape commuters
|Published
File photo: Dean Hutton/Bloomberg. File photo: Dean Hutton/Bloomberg.
Cape Town - Rainy weather and traffic and street lights out from load-shedding made life miserable for Cape Town commuters again on Wednesday morning as the inadequate electricity supply continued for a fourth day.
Eskom implemented Stage 2 load shedding on Wednesday morning and the lights went out in the CBD and several suburbs, after a period of Stage 3 shedding on Tuesday night which saw great swathes of the city cloaked in darkness for hours.
In a statement issued on Wednesday morning, the electricity utility said the country’s electricity supply system remained “very constrained and vulnerable” due to a shortage of generation capacity.
Several generators at the country’s power stations were out of service due to both planned shut-downs and unplanned breakdowns, as maintenance of the national power supply remained a crucial issue.
“Eskom would like to assure customers that load shedding is implemented as a necessary measure to protect the power system,” the utility said.
“Any additional changes on the already vulnerable and constrained power system could lead to a change in the stage of load shedding at short notice.
“We will communicate if there is a need to change stages.”
Stage 3 load shedding allows Eskom to drop as much as 4 000MW of demand from the grid by shutting down supply.
“Eskom calls on all customers to reduce the load on the electricity grid by urgently switching off geysers, air conditioners, pool pumps and all non-essential appliances throughout the day, which will reduce electricity demand,” the utility said.
“Commercial customers, particularly shopping centres and office blocks, can also make a big difference by switching off non-essential lights and not leaving office equipment such as photocopiers and computers in standby mode after hours.”
Eskom will use the published load-shedding schedules which are available on the Eskom website (http://loadshedding.eskom.co.za) for Eskom customers. Eskom customers can also contact the utility’s customer call centre on 0860 037 566.
Municipal customers should contact their municipalities for further information.
Eskom will provide regular updates on the status of the power system through all media platforms.
Cape Argus