Load-reduction has seen additional power cuts in Mbombela and eMalahleni, with some residents claiming they are being punished for their municipalities’ unpaid debt to Eskom. The power utility denies these allegations.

eMalahleni municipal spokesperson Lebo Mofokeng told the Witbank News that ‘unofficial communication is doing the rounds that 40 municipalities around the country are being subjected to both load-shedding and load-reduction, with some communities experiencing more than 12 hours [per day] without electricity’. No warning is given of these additional outages.

Also read: Eskom is allegedly punishing eMalahleni for outstanding debt

Caxton Local Media reported on December 15 that Eskom denied that load-reduction was connected to debt.

Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha told Caxton’s Liryn de Jager: “The network equipment is designed to handle the demand that has been calculated based on forecasted customer base demand for a specific area. Any demand above the installed capacity will overload the equipment and result in repeated failures that often cause damage to the distributor network, infrastructure and property.

“To prevent catastrophic failure of equipment that may cause a safety risk to the community and lead to extended outage times, Eskom Distribution implements load-reduction during peak load demand periods.”

Also read: Load-shedding: The bigger picture of SA’s darkest times

On December 7, Mbombela residents experienced four extra hours of unannounced blackouts, on top of stage 6 load-shedding.

The metro at the time stressed that the additional power cuts were unrelated to its debt to Eskom, alleged to be around R2.1b.

Mbombela mayor Sibongile Makhushe had a meeting with Eskom on Wednesday about the possibility of the municipality controlling load‐shedding to minimise the impact it has on businesses and the city’s water supply.

Also read: Unscheduled power cuts explained

“The power utility informed the municipality that if the grid is under pressure nationally, Eskom will switch off supply to try and stabilise the grid as an emergency measure, without any prior notification,” she says.

eMalahleni owes Eskom around R7b, with Mofokeng saying they are awaiting an official statement from the power utility to find out what the load-reduction schedule is.