Johannesburg’s power unity City Power announced that it will be implementing load reduction due to the critical electricity consumption rate in the metro. This will occur during peak times, 4am – 10am , and 4pm – 10pm. They are implementing this due to the demand which is currently higher than the capacity of their supply systems.

What is load reduction?

Load reduction is the reduction of power supply to households and businesses. What this means is that you will have lower than usual electricity supply in your house/business meaning that you can only use electricity for low electricity consuming activities such as watching TV.

Speaking on Newzroom Afrika Professor Sampson Mamphweli of the South African National Energy Development Institute says, ”this is done in many ways, one of them being switching off particular appliances in households remotely. For instance they can switch off geysers using the geyser control system that they have.”

Who gets to experience load reduction?

The whole city will not be in darkness. City Power has identified 80 areas that seemingly have had high electricity consumption rates.

”Some of these areas have got a lot of illegalities happening, such as illegal connections which are contributing factors as they increase the demand. There are also people who are not paying for electricity,” said Isaac Mangena, City Power Spokesperson.

Affluent areas are also not spared, the ripple relay system will be utilised to control the consumption of electricity by switching off geysers as stated above.

Have a look at whether you will be affected below;