The City of Cape Town is urging businesses and residents to beware of the risks of nuisance tripping as a result of load shedding.
According to a recent report by ewn.co.za, Eskom says that it may struggle to keep the lights on for the next few months.
To help businesses and residents cope with the effects of load shedding, the City of Cape Town encourages residents and businesses to reduce the risks of nuisance tripping, which happens when the power does not come back on immediately after load shedding, by switching off all electrical appliances before load shedding is scheduled to take place.
According to the City, when power is restored after load shedding, nuisance tripping sometimes occurs. This is when the power is restored to an area and fails to come back on in some parts. The power outage often goes unreported because residents assume load shedding is still taking place.
To reduce the risks and occurrence of nuisance tripping, appliances including geysers, air conditioners and pool pumps must be switched off prior to load shedding. It also recommends that one light could be left on to indicate the return of the supply.
The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy and Climate Change, Councillor Phindile Maxiti, explains: “City teams always try their best to respond as soon as possible and within available capacity when a call is logged that an outage is carrying on for longer than the specific timeframe that has been indicated by Eskom for load shedding.”
She adds: “We are also continuing our endeavours to become less reliant on Eskom for electricity supply and gain greater control as a municipality over the ability to generate and distribute electricity.”
At present Eskom provides more than 90 percent of South Africa’s power.
In an event where there’s a power outage at an unscheduled time or the electricity supply remains off for longer than the period specified in the load-shedding schedule, customers should SMS details to its technical operations centre on 31220.
In addition, for Eskom load-shedding alerts, City supplied customers should visit www.capetown.gov.za. Eskom customers should visit www.loadshedding.eskom.co.za.
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