Johannesburg households have been hit the hardest by loadshedding and according to City Power, much of the blame lies squarely on Eskom’s ‘go-slow’ employees.
Johannesburg areas affected by prolonged loadshedding
In a statement, the national power supplier noted that loadshedding has been reduced to stage 3 from Wednesday until Friday morning, due to power generation reserves showing “significant progress over the past two days.”
Still, for City Power, which distributes electricity to the greater Johannesburg region, the change offers customers no reprieve from prolonged outages.
According to Jozi’s power supplier, households in parts of the city have remained without electricity, hours after loadshedding was scheduled to end.
“For example, Windsor substation was, today (Wednesday), load shed at 02:00 early morning and was due for restoration at 04:30. By 08:00, this morning it was not restored. Yesterday, the same Windsor customers were shed at 14:00 and due to be restored by 16:30. But the customers were only restored just before 19:00 due to delayed restoration by Eskom,” City Power said.
Areas that have been affected by prolonged power outages are:
- Lenasia
- Midrand
- Randburg
Residents in Windsor and Northriding, City Power revealed, have endured up to five hours of no electricity after loadshedding was scheduled to be suspended for the day.
“This is unacceptable. We have raised our concerns with Eskom in this regard, and appeal to our customers to bear with us as we try to resolve this with Eskom,” the city’s power supplier pleaded.
Eskom: Power supplier reduces total breakdowns
The national power supplier, in the meantime, has been on an uphill battle in trying to restore a semblance of stability on its electricity grid.
Gains achieved between Monday and Tuesday allowed for a decrease in power outages. However, once stage 3 loadshedding reaches its cut-off deadline on Friday morning, South Africa will be cautiously placed on stage 2 rotational blackouts.
“Total breakdowns currently amount to 12 709MW, while planned maintenance is 6 164MW of capacity,” the power utility revealed.