After four months of immunity from load shedding, the eThekwini Municipality announced on Monday that load shedding will be reintroduced in the province of KwaZulu-Natal from August 1.
This comes after Eskom granted the province immunity following the devastating April floods that claimed the lives of more than 400 people, damaged roads and infrastructure and also left many people homeless.
The municipality said it had become necessary for it to contribute to load-shedding to “avert a total blackout”.
“As the country scrambles to avert a total blackout, it has become necessary that eThekwini starts contributing to load shedding, hence the re-introduction of load shedding in eThekwini,” the city said in a statement.
Eskom and the city of eThekwini are in “continuous engagements” to avert any further risks on the City’s electrical grid following the extensive damage to electrical infrastructure.
“As some substations are still out of commission and many parts of the network require re-configuration, the existing load shedding schedules had to be amended. eThekwini, has therefore prepared a temporary schedule that will be effective for stages 4 and higher. This schedule will be in use until further notice. Certain areas will be excluded from load shedding because of highly compromised networks,” reads the statement.
Customers are urged to use electricity sparingly and reduce their load especially during peak hours. All high consumption appliances such as geysers, stoves, heaters must be switched off during power outages to prevent overload tripping when the electricity returns.
Source: The South African, Sowetan Live, The Witness, Highway Mail, image from The South African: Pixabay