Johannesburg power utility City Power says it has lost millions of rands as a result of load shedding (rolling blackouts) over the last week.
City Power said not only was it having a detrimental effect on the City in terms of revenue collection, but is also damaging their aging infrastructure.
Cable damage and theft, equipment breakdowns, extra staff and vandalism, are just some of the factors contributing to City Power suffering huge financial losses linked to rolling blackouts.
City power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena says, “It’s a lot of money and really it goes into millions because we are talking about the breakers that blow up, transformers that blow up, and so forth. So it’s a lot of money that we are talking about but also the money that we are also spending is the overtime that we basically have to pay people to be on standby in terms of operators so they can be able to switch on and off.”
Eskom reduce rolling blackout stage during the week
Eskom has announced that blackouts will be reduced to Stage 1 from 21:00 on Friday night until 5 am on Monday.
The power utility says good progress has been made in recovering generation capacity, but cautions that this is not sufficient to suspend blackouts.
The power utility has appealed to all South Africans to help limit the impact of blackouts by reducing the usage of electricity and to switch off non-essential items.
Eskom Spokesperson Sikhonathi Mantshantsha says Eskom will continue to evaluate the system.
“While there has been an improvement in generation capacity and a significant recovery in the emergency generation reserves caution is called for. Eskom will continue to evaluate the system and make the necessary adjustments as soon as conditions allow. We will communicate promptly should there be any changes to the power system.”
Eskom reviewing rolling blackouts as systems improve:
