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Eskom is progressing well with the maintenance of its power generating plant whilst supplying the country’s electricity needs. No load shedding is anticipated today.

Eskom has not implemented load shedding for close to 300 days, except for 2 hours and 20 minutes. Eskom will inform its customers including municipalities and the general public before it implements load shedding.

Some customers, particularly at municipal level, may have experienced localised power outages due to cable theft, technical faults, overloading and illegal connections. Other customers may have been disconnected due to non-payment of their electricity bill. This is not load shedding.

We urge customers to contact their electricity supplier for information on how they can get reconnected, or in the case of a localised outage when it will be resolved. Eskom customers can report the outages on 08600 375 66. Municipal customers should contact their local authority.

Customers are reminded that power failures on distribution lines have a variety of causes:

Lightning is a frequent cause of power failures. The thinner power line conductors on the smaller power lines can be severed by lightning. Lightning strikes can also cause permanent damage to insulators or equipment connected to the power line, such as transformers, surge arresters or circuit breakers. These faults have to be located and repaired before power supply can be restored. Even if lightning does not strike a line directly, the high voltage it induces in a nearby power line can damage equipment and cause failures.

Cable theft is also a major contributor to power failures. Eskom regularly holds aggressive awareness campaigns to inform the public of the negative effects of cable theft. We work closely with communities to encourage them to report any illegal cable thefts. Vandalism is another major cause of power failures. Stones, metal implements and other objects thrown at pylons and lines or shots fired at insulators can cause damage.

Vehicles crashing into poles or similar accidents can damage lines and poles.
Trees or branches blown onto lines can cause short circuits which might be brief, occurring for instance only when the wind blows. Attempts are made to limit environmental damage, and not to cut down trees unless absolutely necessary. This, however, adds to the problem of keeping servitudes free of potentially hazardous trees. Though Eskom patrols the power line routes regularly, patrolmen are responsible for hundreds of kilometres of line in their district and might not always locate these potentially problematic trees.

Birds and veld fires can cause damage that leads to power failures. Insulator pollution: The main sources of pollution on insulators are wind-borne salt from the sea and bird droppings. These generally build up on the insulators during the dry seasons and cause faults when the insulators are wet. Eskom washes insulators on affected lines and in some cases uses a special type of insulator, or coats insulators with a special silicone grease.

Repair work: Supplies are sometimes interrupted on purpose to enable maintenance work to be performed on equipment. When such work is planned, Eskom takes all reasonable steps to warn the customers concerned beforehand. Eskom also makes extensive use of live-line maintenance techniques to reduce the number of planned power cuts. Road workers sometimes dig up local supply cables, disrupting power in that particular area.

Overload: At times the demand for electricity increases to the point that the system becomes overloaded. Unless Eskom reduces load, that is, cuts off supply temporarily to certain users, there will be a complete blackout affecting all customers for a protracted period of time. Load reduction measures, which can be implemented if an overload is foreseen or occurs slowly, are designed to spread the supply interruptions as equally as possible among all customers. Often, however, overloads happen without warning and action must be taken automatically. We will continue to provide regular updates on the state of the power system through various media platforms.

Issued by Eskom