Tshwane cancels load rotation plan — and reveals when all areas should have power
The City of Tshwane has backtracked on a plan to implement load rotation as a way to provide intermittent power to areas in the metro that have been left without electricity since seven power pylons collapsed on Sunday night.
The city also said it expected to restore power to all areas affected by the outage by Thursday evening.
These announcements came in a statement from the mayoral committee member for utility services and regional operation and coordination, Themba Fosi, at 18:30 on Wednesday evening.
A few hours earlier, Tshwane said its energy and electricity technical team had reconfigured the Waltloo and Mamelodi substations to receive electricity from the Njala infeed substation instead of Pumulani, which the pylon collapse had impacted.
That would allow for diverting more power to areas that had not yet been reconnected.
At the time, it was believed this temporary plan would require a load rotation scheme that would cut off power in areas that had not been affected by the outage, to balance the load on the stations.
That is no longer the case.
“I am very pleased to share that our technical teams have come up with a solution that, once implemented, will allow for the restoration of all areas affected by the outage,” said Fosi.
“Originally, it was thought that this was going to require a system of load rotation in the entire affected area, but our technicians managed to balance the system in a manner that should allow us to restore all areas without load rotation, pending any possible problems.
“We are continuously working to restore areas, and new areas are being returned to service every few hours.”
Themba Fosi, City of Tshwane MMC for utility services and regional operation and coordination
However, Fosi cautioned that possible trips could occur in areas where power had been restored as the city continued to balance the system to ensure power for all customers.
“To this end, I’d like to ask that residents use electricity as sparingly as possible, particularly around evening peak periods from 17:00—21:00,” Fosi appealed.
At the time of the statement, the following areas in Pretoria were still without power:
- Baviaanspoort Prison
- Boschkop
- Bultfontein
- Derdepoort (Zambezi Manor)
- Doornpoort
- Glenway Estate
- Kameeldrift
- Koedoespoort Industrial
- Leeuwfontein
- Mamelodi 2 (partially restored)
- Mamelodi 3
- Montana Park
- Moregloed
- Nellmapius (partially restored)
- Pumulani
- Queenswood
- Roodepark
- Sable Hills
- Sinoville
- Vastfontein extension
- Waterval
- Waverley
- Woodlands
- Zeekoeigat
Eskom helping Tshwane rebuild pylons
State-owned power utility Eskom is helping the city rebuild the collapsed high-voltage towers.
Acting Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena told Beeld on Tuesday it would take about five days to fix.
But instead of reconstructing the pylons, which Eskom previously said costs R3 million to R4 million each, they are being replaced with monopoles to allow for faster construction.
These 23-metre-tall poles have a solid concrete base and bottom thicker than the top to ensure stability.
On Wednesday, the utility shared images of its personnel joining Tshwane officials at the pylon sites, with monopoles seemingly being offloaded from trucks.
Following the collapse, several Twitter users shared a tweet from October 2022 in which a concerned citizen had attempted to warn the city that one of the towers next to the N4 had several trusses stolen and was in danger of collapse.
However, Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink said in a video statement on Sunday that you could see where the pylons had been repaired several times after being looted.
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