Norman Magill writes:
I reside in Benoni. On November 5, there was no power from about 16:00 to 21:00 and again after midnight for two hours.
On the morning of November 6, I was driving around a few suburbs and the street lights were on in broad daylight and we must suffer from load-shedding.
At 15:45, the street lights were still on and 25 minutes later, there was load-shedding.
It looks like nobody cares.
Editor’s note:
According to the Ekurhuleni metro, these are the main reasons why street lights are on during the day:
• Teams are doing maintenance on street light sections
• The department is providing a temporary supply from the street lights to a customer until a faulty service connection can be repaired
• The photocell may be faulty and does not switch off during daylight conditions
• The department could have purposefully left a circuit to curb theft of street light cables in an identified hotspot.
• Street lights use either LED lights or a gas vapour that are ignited and use very little power to stay on. Due to constant theft, the cost of keeping the lights on against repairing stolen wires is very cost-effective. The electricity consumption of the street lights that are on during the day is less than 0.3% of the total electricity consumption and, therefore, negligible compared to overall electricity consumption
• The Street Light Management Tender to assist with maintenance management of street lights has been approved and contractors have been appointed to assist in addressing the backlogs
They have been working since March in all the depots repairing and maintaining street lights.
“As a result of Covid-19, employee rotation in the department and the City’s guidelines on the management of Covid-19, the energy department has a short staff complement. The power outages directly affecting consumers receive main priority,” said metro spokesperson Zweli Dlamini.
“Street light maintenance is still performed on street light networks, but due to restricted resources, a backlog on street light maintenance has developed, which the department is in the process of addressing, since the appointment of the street light maintenance contractors in March.
“Maintenance of street lights is done on a systematic and planned basis; however, the department also relies on customers to report faulty street lights.”
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