Statement by Clr Ros Greeff on Eskom power cuts
Statement by Clr Ros Greeff, member of the mayoral committee for Infrastructure and Services on Eskom power cuts
The City of Johannesburg will ensure that disruptions in electricity provision to city residents and businesses are kept to a minimum during the current period of shortages in power generated by Eskom.
The Member of the Mayoral Committee for Infrastructure and Services, Ms Ros Greeff, says the City is very sensitive to the impact that the recent outages had on business activities, community life and traffic flow in Johannesburg.
"We want to minimize the impact of the disruptions on our customers," she says. "And we remain sensitive to the needs of our clients who are heavily dependent on electricity for their business and livelihood."
Ms Greeff emphasizes that the current series of outages is outside the control of the City and of City Power. It is caused by problems experienced by Eskom which in turn have an impact on the power distribution to the entire country.
City Power is required to do load shedding to reduce the demand for electricity in the city. On Thursday (18/1) some 400 MW was shed in the City but the expectations are that this volume will be reduced as Eskom’s generating capacity improves.
"Fortunately City Power has developed a load shedding plan and schedule that determines to which areas in the City the power is cut as well as the length of the interruptions to ensure that in events like these, the overall impact on customers is minimized. Cognizance is also taken of so called sensitive customers," says Ms Greeff.
"Load shedding is done on a rotational basis. We will try our utmost to ensure that customers who have been affected already will not be inconvenienced again -- but, unfortunately this is dependent on the number of megawatts that Johannesburg is required to shed" she says.
"We want to apologise to all our customers who have been inconvenienced by the disruptions. We also want to call on residents and businesses to help us conserve power by switching off non-essential equipment such as geysers, air-conditioning and swimming pool pumps," says Ms Greeff.
Ends
Issued by:
Nthatisi Modingoane
Media Liaison Officer
CITY OF JOHANNESBURG
Tel: (011) 407 7354
Fax: 403 3494
Cell: 082 467 9228
E-mail: nthatisem@joburg.org.za
