Load shedding: eThekwini ‘has to play its part’
eThekwini's head of electricity says Durban has to play its part in helping reduce the pressure on the national electricity grid because load shedding is a legal requirement.
Maxwell Mthembu gave an outline of how the city will implement its new load shedding schedule from Thursday.
"We are forced by our licence condition. If we don't do it, we may lose the licence, it is a matter of legal requirements that we have to participate in load shedding.
"If you ask me and the people you interact with, no one wants load shedding. I personally don't want load shedding, but it is a necessity and if we don't do it we may have a risk of collapsing the grid nationally."
READ: eThekwini load shedding suspended on Wednesday
From Thursday, eThekwini will experience load shedding like the rest of the country.
In the revised schedule, new blocks have been allocated with a new connotation of A and B.
"Instead of you having Block 1, you now have Block 1A, 1B, Block 2A, 2B all the way up to 16. Those are only affecting residential and commercial businesses.
"Now, above that which is Block 17, 18, 19 and 20 those affect the industrial sector which was not also part of load shedding, but we have now put them there. If you look at Block 1 to 16 A and B those are going to be stage 1 to 6."
