Load shedding schedule for Lydenburg

LYDENBURG – Since last week residents in town has felt the frustration of the Eskom load shedding which continued this past week.
Eskom released a press release last week stating that the power system is extremely constrained and will remain so over the weekend necessitating the need for Eskom to implement load shedding.
Eskom said this is due to unforeseen technical problems at power stations, depleted water reserves and logistical issues relating to diesel supplies at peaking power stations.
“As a result Eskom had to implement stage 2 load shedding today (Friday) as of 11:00. At 12:05 load shedding was extended from stage 2 to stage 3. The change in stages is due to the shutdown of two of our open cycle gas turbine power station which use diesel to generate electricity. The diesel reserves have been depleted at the Gourikwa and Ankerlig gas turbines leading to the shutdown of the power stations. The Drakensburg and Palmiet pumped storage schemes which use water to generate electricity have reduced output as a result of depleted water reserves.”
A load shedding schedule for this week was released. According to the schedule, load shedding would continue well into January if need be. Although it states that no shedding will occur over Saturdays and Sundays the town was left powerless over the weekend.
Eskom said that consumers can help alleviate pressure from the system by reducing their electricity usage as much as they can. “Eskom has also asked major customers to contribute by reducing their usage by 10%.”
The power giant said that they are trying to make the schedules as reliable and accurate as possible, but there are inaccuracies because most networks do not coincide exactly with area boundaries, such as suburb boundaries. “So, there will always be a margin of error, because two customers living in different parts of a suburb can be fed by different networks which are switched off at different times. Sometimes engineers have to switch networks differently from the plan, for operational reasons. We try to minimise this as much as possible and stick as closely as possible to the published schedules. We are also working on ways to inform customers when we have to deviate from the published schedule. On occasion, the power is off for longer than stated in the published schedules.” Eskom said the usual reason for this is that when the engineers attempt to switch the power back on, either the remote control switches do not operate, meaning that field staff members have to drive out to switch the power to customers back on manually, or sometimes network faults happen on re-energising because of a surge in the current. Then the field staff have to go out and physically fix the fault.
Eskom’s load shedding schedules are available for Eskom direct customers on its website (https://loadshedding.eskom.co.za/ ). Customers are encouraged to contact the call centre on 0860 037 566 for additional information and if they experience any problems regarding the schedules.
Eskom will provide regular updates on the status of the power system through all the media platforms.
The scheduled load shedding program for Lydenburg for the rest of December and January is said to be as follow: