A right old power struggle

KNYSNA NEWS – Over the first three days of this week, thousands of residents whose homes receive electricity from the Eastford Substation were without power for 43,5 hours.

Equipment failure at the substation left residents in the dark from Monday morning to Wednesday evening, 11 January, when repairs were eventually finalised.

The power debacle started on Monday morning, 9 January when a routine load-shedding slot kicked in for Knysna at 08:00.

But, when the power was supposed to come back on at 10:30, those fed by the Eastford Substation were not so fortunate. According to updates sent out by Ward 10 Councillor Peter Bester, "an inrush current caused the main breaker to explode" at the substation.

At the time of the outage Bester and Knysna Municipality both warned that it was a major fault and that it could take a long time to repair.

Power back in time for load-shedding
That it did. Municipal technicians worked tirelessly for almost the entire day, through the night and into Tuesday morning to find a solution to the problem, with Bester providing an update at 05:00 indicating that several attempts had been made to restore power but all were unsuccessful. Just over two hours later, they finally had success as power was restored to the substation, and to the residential area at about 07:30.

But much to their dismay, the power went off again at 08:00 due to load-shedding. In the past when outages such as this struck areas of Knysna they were able to obtain emergency exemption from load-shedding. According to Bester, it was not possible in this case. "Because this was a municipal infrastructure failure, and not an Eskom infrastructure failure, we could not be granted emergency exemption on this occasion," he said.

Repairs being carried out on cables at the Eastford Substation on Monday night.

Temporary fixes
There were also concerns that the temporary fix could fail at any time, especially after load-shedding. According to a local electrical engineer who wished to remain anonymous, when power is restored after load-shedding, "substations receive a major surge in electricity demand as all of the appliances that were without power need to receive power, so the electricity must essentially 'catch up'."

Despite the concerns, the very dark cloud did have a silver lining. Knysna Municipality confirmed on Tuesday that more permanent repairs were scheduled for Wednesday, albeit at a cost. Power would be switched off once again, between 08:00 and 16:00. To add insult to injury, this was followed by even more load-shedding until 20:30.

For those who lost count, this meant that between 08:00 on Monday and 20:30 on Wednesday, residents on the Eastford Substation network were without electricity for 43,5 hours, 71,90% of the total 60,5 hours in that time. This includes load-shedding.

Frustrations and future issues
Naturally, it has led to frustration among residents. "The tripping of the substation has been a problem for a long time. I feel the municipality should not just point fingers at Eskom but be more proactive at sourcing, maintaining and procuring these parts," said Knysna Heights resident Karen Abrams. "The municipality works for the ratepayers, but I always feel like they are doing us a favour by delivering the services we pay for."

The electrical engineer also cautioned that it might not be the last time we see this kind of failure in Knysna. "High voltage switches are made to be switched on, and stay on. They are designed to trip when there is a short, such as a tree branch falling on an electrical line, but they are not meant to be switched on and off every two or four hours," he said. "We have Eskom to thank for these issues, and as long as load-shedding continues, the risk of similar failures will remain alive and well."

Knysna Municipality was approached for comment on the matter, but had not responded to questions from Knysna-Plett Herald by the time of going to print.

Tests being carried out at Eastford Substation on Monday.