05 A waitress stands and waits for trade in a Nuno's shop.Open for trade ,business as usual for a Nino's franchise at Bank City JHB CBD. Power outage due to a electrical fire at a sub station in JHB CBD . Picture: Antoine de Ras. 28/07/09 05 A waitress stands and waits for trade in a Nuno's shop.Open for trade ,business as usual for a Nino's franchise at Bank City JHB CBD. Power outage due to a electrical fire at a sub station in JHB CBD . Picture: Antoine de Ras. 28/07/09
Cape Town - Power utility Eskom has warned that consumers should be prudent with the use of electrical appliances on Father’s Day as the power supply grid is very vulnerable.
The state-owned enterprise briefly moved its load-shedding schedule to stage 3 on Saturday, effectively meaning there was a shortfall of up to 4 000MW.
Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe apologised to users for the erratic supply pattern, which he said had been caused by a breakdown at the Matimba power station in Limpopo.
He warned that power supply would be tight, and predicted the utility could possibly move its load shedding to stage 2 or stage 3 today, which is also the longest night of the year.
“We sincerely apologise that we have had to implement these levels of load shedding, but the grid is very vulnerable because we are using very old and unreliable systems,” Phasiwe said.
He noted that stage 3, which entails load shedding of two hours or more for two to three times a day, “is not the norm, but more of an aberration”.
On Saturday afternoon various areas experienced power outages as Eskom’s load-shedding shifted between stage 1 and stage 2 and then, for half an hour to stage 3, when the grid was most vulnerable.
Weekend Argus