HOW TO AVOID NUISANCE TRIPPING AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR APPLIANCES DURING LOAD SHEDDING
Load Shedding has become a regular occurrence in South Africa. Apart from its negative effect of power outages, it has an enormous impact on consumers and businesses as it is more likely to cause damage to appliances brought on by power surges and dips.
When the Load Shedding stages increase, so do the frequency of the rotational power cuts, which in turn 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 cell phone 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.
Nuisance tripping is another issue that sometimes occurs as the technical staff are in the process of restoring the power supply. This is when the power supply is restored to an area and fails to come back on in some parts. When the electrical connection is restored by Eskom, the start-up load on a transformer might exceed the capacity of the network, causing the circuit breaker to trip. We are only able to 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 our normal peak usage is at 85 MVA, this can shoot up to 110 MVA when the power is returned after load shedding which negatively impacts on the network. This results in trips or faults occurring which require our maintenance teams to effect 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.
Fire Safety Equipment requirements, please contact 044 801 6300.
- Building Control can be contacted on 044 801 9176 with any queries about structural integrity, hazardous materials and a valid Certificate of Occupation.
- Electrical related compliance please contact 044 801 9222.
Apart from load shedding, the George Municipality continues to assure residents and businesses that the service departments are constantly busy dealing with repairs, maintenance and laudably getting to planned preventative maintenance.