HIGHVELD – Load shedding does not only affect residents and businesses for the five hours daily (or longer) when the electricity is off, but the long term effects are far worse.
Local businesses are losing money because not all types of businesses can operate on generators.
Ms Magda van Lienden, owner of a small bakery in Trichardt, said when they experience load shedding, she has to send her workers home, because the phase 3 oven is too big to run on a generator.
“We cannot do anything when there is load shedding,” said Ms Van Lienden.
Apart from the load shedding, the building where Ms Van Lienden’s bakery is, also experienced electricity problems and they have also been without electricity for four days.
Load shedding also caused more electrical problems on the cables leading to mini-sub stations and ring-sub feeders feeding the town with electricity.
Secunda residents in the area around Highveld Park High School did not have electricity for four days due to a cable fault which was most likely worsened by load shedding.
The electricity was not restored after another bout of load shedding on Monday, 9 December.
“All our meat went off and we cannot even buy food, because we do not know when the electricity will be restored and with the constant load shedding, we do not want to take a chance and buy meat and then it goes off again,” said a resident.
The Govan Mbeki municipality’s electrical team faced many challenges when they tried to find the fault and fix the cable.
Ms Mariaan Chamberlain, DA Councillor, said the team had to work in rain with the minimum equipment and protective clothing to detect and repair the fault. They also had to bear the brunt of unhappy residents.
Ms Chamberlain informed residents that the problem was at ringsub 5 and that the municipal team was on site by Monday morning trying to find the fault.
The municipality’s electrical team was still working to fix the electricity problems on Wednesday, 11 December in McKay Street in Secunda.
Ms Chamberlain said on Wednesday, 11 December, the team did locate the fault, but it seemed as if there were more than one fault with the cable near ringsub 5.
The team installed a transformer in McKay Street to provide electricity to residents as a temporary solution, while they were still also working on the other electricity problems.
Sasol eventually pitched in and lend the municipality a thumper to help locate the faults on the cables. Sasol’s team also joined the municipality’s team to help them get to the bottom of the problem.
“Sasol’s thumper is a better and more sophisticated machine than that of the municipality and it was easier and faster to find the fault with Sasol’s thumper,” said Ms Chamberlain, who was in constant contact with the electrical team from the municipality and kept residents informed.
Power in the area around ringsub 5 was restored late on Thursday night, 12 December, but it soon tripped again.
By Friday morning, 13 December, the electricity was eventually restored. According to Eskom’s app, load shedding stage 2 was scheduled for Friday, which meant no load shedding.
Ms Chamberlain said load shedding does have an effect on the electricity boxes and cables and could be the reason for many of the cable faults.
“When the electricity supply is turned on again after load shedding, the surges are too strong for the cables to handle and if there is already a small crack in the cable, the surge can worsen the condition of the cable.”
Ms Chamberlain thanked the municipality’s electrical team for their hard work in the rain and difficult circumstances to sort out the electrical problems, as well as all the other stakeholders who helped to fix the problem.
