Load-shedding by Eksom puts City Power in a Catch-22 situation in Johannesburg

Arslan October 8, 2023October 8, 2023

Electricians have to halt working on faults in order to manually turn off suburbs

Before the load-shedding starts, Patrick Hlungwani, a City Power electrician has to abandon his everyday responsibilities in Johannesburg of handling power failure and disruptions, and follow the control room’s instructions to make a trip to a substation.

A typical day for a load-shedding operator at City Power

Johannesburg’s Power grid suffers as a result of load-shedding. According to City Power authorities, power infra was not intended to be turned off and on at frequent intervals. Patrick Hlungwani, a City Power electrician, demonstrates how the button for load shedding is turned on/off.

Hlungwani with his colleague, Siboniso Khumalo, shift their focus to a different task: making sure that the relevant suburbs are impacted by load-shedding as per the scheduling system. This can only be accomplished by manually turning off substations that can’t be turned off remotely.

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About 100 primary substations are owned and operated by City Power and 68 of City Power’s key substations can be operated remotely, while the remainder must be physically turned on and off by roving crews of technicians.

‘Scada, or remote switch operating system, covers around 33 percent of 268 substations. Those substations that are a part of the system, are often forced to operate manually owing to burglary and surge overloads. On

Thursday, TimesLIVE went with them to a Mondeor substation that had to be turned off. They switched out the lights in Mondeor, South Gate, as well as the neighboring districts just after 5 p.m.

“We conduct our regular maintenance work, but when Eskom tells us to undertake load-shedding, we halt everything and concentrate upon load-shedding,” he explained.

When there are outages or unforeseen disruptions that should be addressed at the same time, they try to enlist the assistance of coworkers who are not on duty.

“You require assistance because you are preoccupied with the problem. You need to conduct some load-shedding, so you call someone. Remember, the guy you’re contacting isn’t on duty, he’s on vacation, and he might not even be in Gauteng,” he explained.

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According to Isaac Mangena, spokesperson, City Power, load shedding is an issue that must be addressed immediately.

Inside the impacted substations’ control rooms, electricians must turn off circuits and afterwards return once it’s time for power to be restored to the region.

While load-shedding taxes their already-strained resources, requiring officials to allocate them with both load-shedding as well as routine outages, Mangena said they still endeavor to have workers available for both load-shedding and daily disruptions, which is difficult.

The truth is that operational and financial harm is being caused, and that this would be realized once load-shedding is lifted

“Some places, particularly those near the border regions, like Lenasia, Roodepoort, and Randburg, are all being load-shed on behalf of us by Eskom.” Operators are only sent when the system is unable to reset it remotely, which occurs in over 50% of the substations, he added.

Load-shedding, he claimed, had a negative impact on Johannesburg’s power grid. Equipment which is not just outdated, but also has an R26 billion backlog.

Infrastructure is part of the backlog that the body is working to clear, as is renovating old substations, cabling, giving power to newly established communities, and trying to deal with illegal connections, which are a persistent problem.

“Load-shedding has such a negative impact on the crumbling infrastructure that this affects its life span almost instantly. Electric infrastructure wasn’t ever designed to be turned off and on at frequent short periods. The fact is that operational and financial harm is being caused, and it would be felt when load-shedding ceases, ” he added.

Hlungwani seems unconcerned about the situation, about manually load-shedding places, but he is anxious about switching on again, as a few circuit breakers have tripped owing to overloading. The trips are necessary to prevent additional damage to the equipment.

Meredale Southern distributor from substation had tripped owing to overload, while restoring electricity on Thursday, following load-shedding. This implies that more City Electricity employees would have to gradually restore electricity in the affected region to avoid overloading.

This might take many hours, essentially “extending” the load-shedding period in the afflicted region.

“The A-level controllers are us. This implies that B-level personnel must travel to the spot and split the load of that area before restoring power in parts till the entire region has been restored. This might require approximately six hours, “ Hlungwani said.

Mangena warned that restarting the electricity grid was harmful to the outdated infrastructure and increased the danger of collapse.

“Additionally, anytime there has been load-shedding, the older network was put under a lot of stress owing to the significant load-shifting and surge that occurs when power comes back.” Overload causes the system to trip, and pole-mounted transformer, small substations, or even cables can explode,” he warned.

City Power uses its state-of-the-art nerve hub to turn on and off remote-controlled substations around the city.

Mangena explained that the recent series of load-shedding occurred while City Power was trying to recover from the effects of prior rounds of load-shedding, which were exacerbated by inclement weather, which caused temperature levels to drop and demand for electricity to rise.

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Load-shedding seems to be an inconvenient occurrence over which we have very little control

Isaac Mangena, a spokesman for City Power,

“It’s a two-edged sword,” says Isaac Mangena, a spokesman for City Power,

An overworked staff, frequent theft and vandalism, equipment failure, and the inability to procure necessary repair materials all contribute to the larger picture.

The amount of outages caused by load-shedding is increasing at City Power.

During the power outages, the majority of localized issues are caused by vandalism and theft, which occurs whenever the network is turned off.

Criminals exploit the situation and meddle with the power infrastructure, resulting in disruptions following load shedding. We attempt to increase the size of our teams so that we can respond faster and restore electricity during load-shedding. The material procurement is proceeding well, with much more wires, joints, cables and fuses being provided to guarantee that we can respond swiftly.

An overworked staff, frequent theft and vandalism, equipment failure, and the inability to procure necessary repair materials all contribute to the larger picture.

The amount of outages caused by load-shedding is increasing at City Power.

During the power outages, the majority of localized issues are caused by theft and vandalism, which occurs whenever the network is turned off.

“To combat cable vandalism and robberies, we’ve strengthened regular patrols in the areas.” Load-shedding, on the other hand, is an unwelcome annoyance over which we have almost no influence,” he remarked.

City Electricity loses millions owing to the impact on equipment, equipment failures, and overtime since more teams are required on the site during load-shedding (when impacted consumers aren’t using power).

Due to safety concerns and strained resources, City Power is not able to perform planned repairs while load-shedding.

“We are compelled to divide our attention between routine outage issues and load-shedding.” We are unable to respond to most power failure reports or perform maintenance when load-shedding is in effect.”

On Monday and Tuesday, City Power will conduct an Energy Indaba to identify answers to its problems, such as incorporating new renewable fuels into its mix to lessen dependency on Eskom.

“It appears like load-shedding will be with us for a long time, forcing us to examine our predictions, strategy, and plans, as well as work on additional ways to avoid rolling blackouts.”

In addition, the company has begun in-house preparation for trainees who would be prepared to handle minor failures and outages, freeing up resources among contractors to handle high voltage issues and more complicated ones.

“This would also spare much-needed finances that might have been used on contractors handling small mishaps and disruptions,” Mangena explained.

Hlungwani, who’s already worked in Johannesburg for roughly 26 years, plans to keep rushing across substations until load-shedding is in effect.

“They’re threatening, we’ll lose entire network unless we do this,” he stated.