By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom has urged South Africans whose regional grids are under pressure due to cold weather to keep their backup power systems offline for at least an hour after load shedding to avoid possible trips.
The group issued an alert on Friday, warning that customers may experience prolonged durations without electricity supply due to “cold load restoration” caused by higher evening peak demands.
The higher peaks are a result of extreme cold weather in certain parts of the country, as well as the wider impact of illegal connections in some regions.
The group specifically highlighted areas in the Western Cape – namely Blackheath, Bluedowns, Delft, Sivlersands and Khayaletshia – as being vulnerable.
It advised that stoves, geysers and pool pumps be switched off and only be switched back on 30 minutes after power has been restored.
In addition, backup power supplies like inverters and UPSs and others be disconnected from main supplies during load shedding and only reconnected 60 minutes after the outages have ended.
While the alert addresses a particular problem in selected areas, it continues the group’s wider push to mitigate grid overload after load shedding ends.
Meanwhile Eskom says that higher demand has forced it to push load shedding higher on Friday.
Stage 4 load shedding will be implemented from 10h00 on Friday and will continue until 05h00 on Saturday.
Load shedding was previously scheduled at stage 2 for the day.
The weekend schedule is subject to change, with Eskom saying it will publish an update as soon as it is required.
The group warned earlier this week that load shedding was likely to escalate as demand ticked higher and its reserves depleted heading into the weekend.
The escalation is likely due to colder weather that is setting in around the country amid another cold front.
The South African Weather Service has warned that the cold weather is likely to persist into the weekend.
The previous cold front that hit the country (10 July) saw user energy demand spike, forcing Eskom to push load shedding to stage 6. The escalation was a combination of higher demand and the utility using up its reserves.
Before the cold front, customer demand was sitting around 30,000MW. During the cold front this escalated to 34,000MW. At the same time, Eskom’s reserves were depleted and the group suffered 11 unit breakdowns, cutting supply.
Eskom’s latest figures show that the group is still fighting to maintain a balance between supply and demand. Energy availability on Thursday was 26,377MW, while total demand hit 31,314MW, necessitating 4,203MW (equivalent to stage 5) load shedding.