City Power warns of ‘load rotation’ in Joburg as winter demand spikes

City Power has warned that it may be forced to cut electricity to certain areas of Johannesburg for six hours per day due to the proliferation of illegal connections placing strain on its infrastructure as winter demand spikes. 

Load rotation takes place when the utility stops providing electricity to an area as a preventative measure to shield its equipment from being overloaded and damaged. This is caused by heightened winter demand, together with the growth in illegal connections. 

Unlike load shedding, City Power says load rotation only affects specified areas that are experiencing extremely high demand. 

In a statement on Thursday morning, City power said that it would only implement these cuts as a “last resort”. 

“City Power will, where necessary, implement load rotation in areas that are experiencing repeated power outages as a result of overloading caused by, among other things, illegal connections.”

“This is done to protect the whole substation from blowing up.”

The utility said that the cuts would be implemented every day between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. in areas where monitoring suggests infrastructure is at risk. It asked residents to reduce power, especially during the peak hours between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. 

Compiled by Jan Cronje