MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Following several comments placed on social media regarding load shedding and why certain areas in Mossel Bay seems to go unaffected, the Mossel Bay Municipality offered the following clarification on the issues.
Morné Olivier, senior manager: electrical services at the municipality, explains.
Why are certain areas exempted from load shedding and others not?
Mossel Bay is experiencing Eskom load shedding with the condition that supply on the Voorbaai 66kV Feeder remain secured due to the critical load to Petro SA Tank Farm as per NRS 048-9-2017 (refineries, fuel pipelines, associated loading, and off-loading depots should be excluded from emergency load reduction requirements).
The need for a continuous supply of diesel to the Gouriqua Power Station, also means that the Mossel Bay Intake substation at Voorbaai is not affected during load shedding. The Gouriqua plant has an installed capacity of 740MW and is intended to supply electricity into the National Grid during peak hours and emergencies.
Take note that all embedded networks in the Mossel Bay CBD and surrounding areas, by having the same source of supply (Voorbaai 66kV feeder), are not individually isolated by the municipality and are therefore excluded from load shedding. The CBD and surrounding areas get supply from the South substation, which gets supply from Intake Substation. When load shedding was first introduced a couple of years ago, it was proposed that South Substation be supplied from a different Eskom supply point so that the CBD would also get load shedding, however, Eskom indicated that their alternative supply point did not have sufficient capacity to supply the additional load.
Why are certain areas that used to be exempted now experiencing load shedding?
Mossel Bay Municipality mainly receives its electricity from Eskom at seven supply points, namely Glentana, Groot Brak, Klein Brak, Mossel Bay Intake, Sonskynvallei, Duinzicht (Mossdustria), and Duinzicht (Ockert Bothma Sub, at the Louis Fourie Rd / Dana Bay intersection). Of these, six get affected by load shedding, and only Mossel Bay Intake Sub at Voorbaai stays on.
Due to Eskom network configuration, Intake Substation and Sonskynvallei substation were previously controlled from the same Eskom line at Proteus Substation (on the Herbertsdale road).
However, in Apr 2019 Eskom undertook to reconfigure its networks for load shedding. This enables Eskom to shed the Sonskynvallei substation, thereby reducing the system load by a further 8MW. These configuration changes were made in approximately October 2019, and therefore areas like Monte Christo, Bayview, and Hartenbos now also experience load shedding.
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