The City of Cape Town is able to save its customers from load shedding most of the time because it is able to generate additional capacity thanks to the help of the Steenbras Pumped Storage Plant.
This as Eskom yesterday announced Stage 4 load shedding.
The power utility initially announced Stage 2 load shedding for the rest of the week, but later on said due to additional breakdowns of a unit at Medupi and two units at Duvha Power Station - together with the high winter demand - that it would move to Stage 4.
“Eskom regrets to inform the public that Stage 4 load shedding will be implemented from 14:00 this afternoon until 22:00 tonight,” a statement said.
“This is in order to ration the remaining emergency generation reserves, which have been depleted. These emergency reserves are required to respond to further emergencies in order to maintain the stability of the national grid. Thereafter Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented as previously communicated.“
The City then announced that its customers will be on Stage 3 until 5pm, and then move to Stage 4 thereafter.
Mayco member for energy and climate change Phindile Maxiti said the City has always built into its planning some additional reserve capacity that it generates through its Steenbras Hydro Pump Station to assist its customers during load shedding if required and if possible.
Maxiti added: “This means sometimes City-supplied customers are the only ones in South Africa that do not have load shedding or that are on a lower level of load shedding than other metros or Eskom customers.”