The inconvenience of increased load shedding for eThekwini is deeply regretted, but protecting the grid is a national priority, writes Musa Mbhele.

The news last week that eThekwini will now be subjected to additional load shedding from May 25 has been met with concern from customers. This is understandable. The reduced levels of load shedding that eThekwini has enjoyed since last year’s floods have served to cushion some of the frustration and inconvenience caused by load shedding, and so it can be expected that customers will be angered to learn that the municipality will now be subjected to load shedding from Stage 1.

Currently the national grid is severely constrained as evidenced by almost daily load shedding. With winter approaching electricity demand is expected to increase thus necessitating the reduction of the available load. To protect the national grid it is therefore no longer possible to continue with reduced load shedding for eThekwini. Honouring our load shedding obligations is also a condition of our Electricity Supply Licence.

We have published the new load shedding schedule well before it comes into effect on Thursday to allow customers to plan. The schedule can be accessed on the city’s website, social media platforms and will be published in local newspapers this week. We have also developed an interactive map to make it easy for customer to determine their load shedding schedule time. The map is available on the city’s website at www.durban.gov.za.

The design principles of the new schedule take into account equity and fairness in shouldering the load shedding burden. The schedule has also been designed with better load management and control in mind. We have introduced two new blocks with an A and B notation to enable this improved load management and control. Blocks 1 to 16 (both A and B) will continue to experience load shedding for two hours at a time. This generally includes all residential customers and commercial customers. The schedule also takes into account the impact of load shedding on traffic congestion in the city centre during peak times. Another key consideration is protecting industrial customers to preserve jobs. Industrial nodes will only experience loadshedding from Stage 7 for a block of 4 hours. We hope this will enable them to plan their production around this constraint. With over 800 000 customers and 15 000 substations balancing the load and the blocks rotation is an extremely difficult task but we have strived for an equitable and fair spread of load shedding across all customers.

EThekwini was allowed a reduced level of load shedding by National System Operator in light of the severe damage to electricity infrastructure that was caused by the floods, but this was always going to be temporary relief to allow eThekwini to fix some of the more urgent and severe damage to equipment. To a large extent we have done this. More than 100 transmission substations were affected by the floods, and almost all of them are now working with some minor protection concerns. In the immediate aftermath of the floods we prioritised restoring power to thousands of households. Simultaneously, the city prioritised restoring power to pump stations to support the restoration of water supply to thousands of customers. Alongside this mammoth effort the city also prioritised restoration of power to key industrial nodes to restore production and preserve jobs. While dealing with all of this we still have normal outages, theft, vandalism and trips related to load shedding to deal with.

Our teams have been working tirelessly to minimize the impact of all this on customers, while engaging Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd and the National System Operator on a regular basis about load shedding matters. As a city we will continue to invest aggressively in electrical infrastructure, within the constraints of budget availability. Just last month Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda announced in his state of the City address that in the next financial year which starts in July the City will spend over R2 billion on upgrading and maintaining electricity infrastructure. This demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that equipment is able to serve customers and is able to adequately withstand the disruptions of load shedding.

Equally, we are investing in alternative sources of power. The Municipality has long recognized the need for alternative power sources and in this regard, adopted an Energy Transition Policy in 2021, after a comprehensive feasibility process concluding the #Renewable Energy Roadmap and the Integrated Resource Plan. Currently, the Section 34 Ministerial Determination process to procure alternative energy from Independent Power Producers is in its final stages. The Municipality has received National Treasury Views and Recommendations that have given the go-ahead for the first Request for Proposals for Independent Power Producers to be released to the market immediately. We plan to do this in the first half of the new financial year with the hope of procuring 400MW from a combination of energy sources. The process of receiving excess independently produced power from Small Scale Embedded Generators is also being finalised and will add more power to the grid.

With the increased load shedding another area of concern for residents is the impact on water infrastructure. Some of our water infrastructure will be excluded from load shedding to minimize ?impact on water supply, for example Inanda Dam, Wiggins Water Treatment Works and ?Durban Heights Water Treatment Works, to mention few. In addition, some of our pump station have generators and will be able to continue working even during load shedding.

Also to be excluded from load shedding are areas where the substations were severely damaged and are therefore unsafe to switch on and off, including Isipingo / Prospecton and Marrianridge where the substation burnt down last year and early this year.

The inconvenience and negative impact of load shedding on Thekwini customers is deeply regretted, but protecting the grid is a national priority. We call upon our residents to work with us to minimize electricity usage. We also call on residents to help us minimize trips after load shedding by switching off high load appliances such as stoves and geysers. In addition to this, it also helps if we don't switch back on our appliances all at the same time immediately after load shedding. This reduces the amount of the load that is in the system and reduces the number of trips that we experience.

Customers can report any electricity-related issues by calling?080 3111111; via email to [email protected] or via WhatsApp on 076?791 2449.

Musa Mbhele

City Manager: EThekwini Municipality