Bay urged to cut load as rolling blackouts return

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THERE are more dark days ahead for Nelson Mandela Bay as Eskom surprised residents yesterday morning with rolling blackouts.

Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town and the Bay were affected after a silo containing 10000 tons of coal cracked and collapsed on Saturday in Mpumalanga.

Load-shedding is expected to carry on for the remainder of the week.

It will start at 8am and end at 10pm.

The collapsed silo at the Majuba power plant affected the supply to six units which lost 1800MW of power.

It ran at a reduced capacity of 1300MW yesterday.

The plant became fully operational in 2001.

"Teams are on site and are dispatching mobile coal feeders," Eskom said.

"In the unlikely event that this contingency is unsuccessful, it may impact [on] the full supply from the power station."

Yesterday, the Bay metro played down the fact that residents were not warned in advance so that they could stock up on candles and diesel.

Earlier this year, load-shedding was announced but it was not implemented in the Bay. Municipal spokesman Roland Williams said yesterday the municipality had started its load-shedding schedule after a request from Eskom.

"The municipality had worked out a schedule for load-shedding in the event of such a request."

He said eight different areas of the Bay would be switched off for at least two hours a day.

Bay electricity and energy executive director Silby Mathew said: "We did receive notification about the load-shedding. We do not know how long it will take, but it normally [takes] a day or two to be normalised."

Energy analyst Chris Yelland took to Twitter yesterday showing a picture of a collapsed silo and conveyors.

"It was a good plan by Eskom to shut down Majuba," he tweeted.

He said Eskom had chosen to run the power station at half of its capacity [1800MW] today.

"Majuba will run out of coal unless temporary bypass conveyors can be put in place to keep coal flowing to the boilers," Yelland said.

With load-shedding expected to be in full swing this week, Eastern Cape Health Department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said it was ready for any problems.

"We have backup generators at all our facilities, but hospital managers must ensure they are well maintained," he said.

"Sometimes you find that the generators are there but they do not have diesel."

The rolling blackouts have also come at a time when matrics will be writing 18 exams this week. Subjects range from mathematics to religious studies.

Eastern Cape Education Department spokesman Loyiso Pulumani said likely impact on the exams was being assessed.

"We will develop contingency plans where necessary," he said.

Eskom chief executive Tshediso Matona apologised to consumers yesterday and urged people to switch off unnecessary lights, geysers, swimming pool pumps and air-conditioning units.

"While the system is tight, this unplanned incident exacerbated the situation. It is very likely that load-shedding will continue for the week." Matona said the cause of the incident was still under investigation.

"We are painfully aware of the impact of this incident given the electricity supply situation in the country," he said.

Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber chief executive Kevin Hustler said it was too early to tell how the blackouts would affect businesses.

"But it will have a wide-ranging impact, especially on a retail level," he said.

Many businesses would have contingency plans in place.

Bay residents had mixed feelings about the load-shedding.

Christelle Marais, 25, of Lorraine, said: "It was quite creepy waking up this morning with no electricity. It would have been nicer to warn us beforehand."

Siviwe Mondile, 26, of Motherwell, said she was used to not being notified of service delivery disruptions.

"Some people have food businesses and meat goes bad when this happens," he said. - Mkhululi Ndamase and Hendrick Mphande