Image via: Adobe Stock
If you’ve ever wondered how Cape Town residents sometimes manage to avoid load shedding, we’ve got the answer.
Image via: Adobe Stock
If you’re living in Cape Town and wondered why you’re on Stage 1 load shedding while the rest of the country is on Stage 2, we’ve got the answer, from the City of Cape Town specifically.
According to a statement by the City’s Executive Mayor Dan Plato, Cape Town has an additional energy generation which can sometimes spare residents one level of load shedding.
Plato said through the generation of additional capacity using the City’s Steenbras Pumped Storage Plant and other management interventions, the city is able to limit the impact on customers.
“We will continue to do our best to protect our customers on the lowest stages of load shedding, being stages 1, 2 and 3, where possible,” he said.
“We will be the first metro and province to break the sole reliance on power from Eskom if we get the legal clarity required from National Government on our efforts to procure cleaner, cheaper and more secure energy from Independent Power Producers (IPPs),” he added.
Plato said the City will continue to pursue avenues that will enable consumers to purchase renewable energy directly from IPPs to lessen the burden power cuts place not only on residents but businesses, too.
According to Plato, this is how residents in Cape Town are sometimes able to avoid load shedding:
The Steenbras Pumped Storage Plant was the first hydro-electric pumped storage scheme in Africa. Each of the station’s four 45 000KW generator units acts as a pump-motor in one mode and a turbine-generator in the other.
Due to the City’s proactive maintenance planning and management, the massive scheduled maintenance of the Steenbras Pumped Storage Plant, which included extensive and intricate underground work, concluded in time for the higher winter demand trends in South Africa.
“I want to congratulate all involved in this maintenance project for their professionalism and efficiency and for simply getting the job done. The City has thus been able to protect its customers from load shedding to a substantial degree,” added Plato.