There will be electricity on Father’s Day

The cold weather, thieves and dilapidated infrastructure are the reasons why you should not pack away all your candles and gas appliances yet.

It is a known fact that all the substations feeding eMalahleni are under severe strain from the three culprits.
On Monday, June 13 temperatures reached a low seven degrees and because of that the city experienced a record high electricity demand.

The outcome of that was another electricity interruption.
The Municipal Manager, Mr Theo van Vuuren had his hands full as residents were up in arms immediately.

“With a number of ringfeeds out at present it is difficult to shift loads and various transformers have burned and or tripped. The teams are full time busy to reset and trying to balance supply. Interruptions will continue until the demand decrease. Your assistance by trying to conserve electricity will be appreciated,” he explained.

To add to the electricity headaches it became necessary for Grobler substation to feed the Blancheville area as the main supply to Blancheville from Doornpoort substation has been vandalised last week.
This puts Grobler substation under severe pressure at this point and affects amongst others the central business area.

There is a little light at the end of this very dark tunnel. An overhead line replacing the Old Middelburg cable is near completion. The work started two weeks ago and is expected to be in operation by Thursday, June 16 bringing some relief.

Urgent work needs to be done on Doornpoort substation. Emalahleni Local Municipality intends to implement this project for the refurbishment and repairs of the faulty equipment including the building with minimal disruptions to customers, and will therefore embark on a three-phase approach to do the work.

This means the work will be carried out in three phases wherein equipment will be dismantled and sent to the manufacturer for repairs and refurbishment, and thus ensuring constant supply to customers.
The substation was going to be attended to on June 19, but after careful consideration Van Vuuren decided to postpone the planned shutdown until July.

“The planned shutdown has been postponed to allow some normality to return. This maintenance is critical and will have to be performed not too far into the future. I know that this is frustrating and we are doing our best to provide as many people possible with electricity. The current severe cold hit us at an untimely moment but we will get the system balanced,” Van Vuuren said.

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