Just a few days after Eskom announced that most of the country would get some relief from stage two load-shedding, a load-reduction process started in the Ehlanzeni District over the weekend.

This was announced on Sunday.

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The statement said areas to be affected included:

According to Eskom’s Mpumalanga operating unit, load-reduction needs to be done to avoid network overloading in high-density areas that are greatly affected by illegal connections, meter bypasses and vandalism of electricity infrastructure.

What is load-reduction exactly?
Load-reduction is when power is switched off in neighbourhoods where illegal connections cause overloads and damage infrastructure.

Eskom further said that during load-reduction implementation, customers are advised to treat power lines as live and to switch off all electrical appliances to avoid power surges when the power returns. Failure to do so may lead to transformer trips or failures, and damages to household appliances when supply is restored.

Customers from the areas mentioned above are requested not to log a fault during the said times. They are urged to report illegal connections by calling the Eskom CrimeLine number on 0800-11-27-22.