Energy

Tue, 9 July 2024

Eskom announced on Tuesday morning that it would start implementing load-reduction, while keeping load-shedding suspended, in order to protect its assets from repeated failures and explosions a result of electricity theft.

The parastatal utility says that while load-shedding has been suspended for 103 consecutive days due to sufficient generation capacity, the issue of network overloading has resurfaced with the onset of winter.

Eskom made the announcement as the South African Weather Service issues ten severe weather warnings for Tuesday, and heavy and disruptive snowfall has been encountered around the country.

They says the issue is prevalent in the Eskom supply areas in Limpopo, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, and North West where around 94% of the total overloaded transformers are as a result of electricity theft and indiscriminate use of electricity.

“Overloaded transformers as a result of electricity theft present a serious risk to human life, we only implement load reduction as a very last resort for the shortest periods possible after all other options have been exhausted,” said Monde Bala, Group Executive for Distribution.

“A transformer damaged by overloading can leave an area without power for up to six months, protecting Eskom’s assets is in the best interest of all South Africans,” concluded Bala.

There are currently around 2 111 transformers which are frequently overloaded across the country at risk of being damaged, with around 900 transformers awaiting replacement.

The electricity theft activities are wide ranging and include illegal connections, network equipment theft, vandalism, meter bypasses and tampering, unauthorised network operations and purchasing electricity from illegal vendors.

Overloading of the transformers is recorded mainly during peak hours between 5am and 7am in the morning and 5pm to 7pm in the evening.

Load-reduction is implemented in areas identified as high-risk due to increased energy consumption. The utility stressed that load-reduction is not load-shedding.

While Eskom aims to exclude paying customers from load reduction, the network’s configuration does not allow for dedicated supply lines to paying customers, making it impractical to service them separately.

Eskom encourages customers to switch off what they describe as non-essential appliances, such as heaters and geysers, and use alternative heating methods.

In areas where load reduction will be implemented, the relevant cluster or province will communicate with affected customers through the normal channels.

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