GEORGE NEWS - Load shedding has become a regular occurrence in South Africa. Apart from the inconvenience of power outages, it has an enormous impact on consumers and businesses as the associated power surges and dips are more likely to cause damage to appliances.
When the load-shedding stages increase, so do the frequency of the power cuts, which results in an increased risk of damage to sensitive electronic items due to power surges, fire, and criminal vandalism.
Reduce nuisance tripping
George Municipality strongly encourages residents to reduce the risk and occurrence of nuisance tripping by switching off equipment such as geysers, television decoders, microwave ovens and swimming pool filters BEFORE a scheduled load shedding takes place.
Also take care to shut down all electronic equipment such as computers and laptops, unplug cellphone chargers and leave one light on to indicate the return of the supply. The strong surge of power coming back can easily damage sensitive electronic equipment.
In addition, nuisance tripping sometimes occurs, resulting in some areas remaining without power when the power supply is restored.
When Eskom restores the electrical connection, the start-up load on a transformer might exceed the capacity of the network, causing the circuit breaker to trip. In such cases the municipality can only reset the circuit breaker once the peak load is reduced.
Damage to electricity networks
Continuous bouts of load-shedding are affecting our electricity networks, especially from stages 4 and above. While normal peak usage in George is 85 MVA, this can shoot up to 110 MVA when the power is returned after load shedding.
This results in trips or faults occurring that require municipal maintenance teams to do repairs - often during the night.
Dangers of fire
George has recently experienced fires at domestic and business premises that could possibly be associated with periods of load shedding.
Additional care and safety measures should therefore be taken with appliances connected to the circuits.
• For Fire Safety Equipment requirements, please phone 044 801 6300.
• Building Control can be contacted on 044 801 9176 with queries about structural integrity, hazardous materials and a valid Certificate of Occupation.
• lectrical-related compliance, please phone 044 801 9222.
George Municipality assures residents and businesses that, in addition to addressing problems caused by load shedding, the service departments are constantly dealing with repairs and maintenance and, laudably, getting to planned preventative maintenance.
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