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Eskom works to restore power after rain and snow hits SA

Cape Town – Extreme weather on Tuesday caused power outages for some South Africans around the country, while Eskom said it had capacity to provide electricity amid a spike in power usage.

The extreme weather conditions are hampering Eskom’s efforts to return electricity supply in some areas in the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal region, which has experienced outages since Sunday due to the weather, Eskom said on Tuesday.

READ: A battle of ideas over SA energy plans sparks fierce debate

In addition, Eskom said electricity demand is expected to rise sharply over the next few days due to the cold weather conditions. “Eskom has adequate power supply to meet the demand,” it said, adding that it has not implemented load shedding in over 11 months.

Eskom said personnel have been working around the clock to determine the extent of the damage and to bring the lines back to service in the accessible areas.

In the Eastern Cape, areas that are still without electricity supply include Matatiele, Elliot and Tsolo.

“Some of the provincial roads continue to be closed due to snow,” said Eskom. This prevented staff from accessing some of the networks.

In KwaZulu-Natal the snowfalls experienced since Sunday in the Nottingham Road, Underberg, Kokstad and Bergville areas resulted in a number of faults on the Eskom networks. However, several customers’ electricity has been restored.

The lower south coast of KZN also experienced heavy rainfalls resulting in flooding and numerous faults on the Eskom network, it said. “Eskom is currently isolating damaged infrastructure to reinstate healthy network whilst repairs are being co-ordinated concurrently,” it said.

In Gauteng Eskom has been experiencing power supply interruptions in Protea Glen from Tuesday morning due to a flash on busbar of the transformer feeding the area. “An emergency outage was required from 17:30 to clean the carbon on the panels that resulted from the flash that occurred this morning,” said Eskom.

 “We urge customer across the nation to continue to use electricity efficiently in order to reduce pressure on the power grid,” it said.

“Electricity demand is expected to rise sharply over the next few days due to the cold weather conditions and Eskom has adequate power supply to meet the demand.

Eskom’s energy availability factor is currently 80.78% and the utility has not utilised its expensive open cycle gas turbines (OCGT) for the past 25 days, Eskom said.

“The OCGT load factor year-to-date is 0.27%, against a target of 2%, with no diesel usage over the past weekend.

“This equates to a total cost of R93.35m this financial year, against the budget of R963.85m.

“As part of our drive to continually save costs through efficiencies and minimal use of our OCGTs we are certainly moving in the right direction.”

 Eskom said customers should report all faults to 08600 37566.

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