Gauteng, Western Cape to face LOAD REDUCTION at peak hours

702 and CapeTalk’s Africa Melane speaks with Daphne Mokwena, Eskom’s National Spokesperson.

Listen below:

Despite the suspension of load shedding, Cape Town and Gauteng residents will be without power at times.

Affected areas in Cape Town will experience load reduction from 5 am to 7 am and from 5 pm - 7 pm.

In Gauteng, the power cuts will be from 5 am to 9 am and 5 pm to 10 pm.

Mokwena says load reduction is taking place to prevent a grid collapse.

“If it does collapse, what we will have as a country is a blackout, which would mean the whole country would have no electricity for approximately 14 days.”

- Daphne Mokwena, National Spokesperson - Eskom

She says this is necessary due to several factors, including illegal connections and people bypassing their meters.

RELATED: 'Why is load reduction disproportionately affecting historically disadvantaged communities?' - South African Human Rights Commission

This leads to more electricity being used than what is catered for, resulting in overloading of the infrastructure.

“We do not actually want to implement load reduction, but we are forced to do that.”

- Daphne Mokwena, National Spokesperson - Eskom

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