Gordon Dindi of Cape Town may have one of the most unenviable and stressful professions in the country.
As the Head of Network Control for the City of Cape Town, Dindi, along with other members of his team, is responsible for implementing load shedding in the Mother City.
Dindi claimed that he works in an undisclosed location, with even his children, family and friends not knowing exactly where he goes for the stressful job.
That all changed, however, when the City of Cape Town invited KFM presenter Carl Wastie onto the premises to take a look at how the procedure goes.
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Talking to another radio station, Cape Talk, Dindi said that the process is not at all easy and involves a number of steps.
‘’In an ideal world, I mean we would simply flip a switch and lights go off and then at precisely the time it's supposed to come back, we flip another switch, and things would work like that, but it's not ideal,’’ he was quoted saying.
According to the load shedding monitoring app, EskomSePush, 2022 has broken the record for the most minutes of rolling blackouts than any other year.
Reportedly, this year has seen well over 192 720 minutes of load shedding, which is 200% higher than any other year.
Here is the process that is followed according to Dindi:
The entire procedure is computer-based.
Substations in charge of certain suburbs then switch gears via a centralised control centre.
Commands are subsequently relayed to the substations, which begin the process of activating the levers that open the breaker on their side.
They receive a signal verifying that the breaker has been opened after it has been opened.
They will subsequently receive proof of the amount of load that has been turned off, which will be shown on their systems.
He stated that during switching, they must balance load flows. This is to prevent the grid from being overwhelmed or congested.
As we approach 2023, Eskom has warned South Africans to prepare for the worst, as the rolling blackouts are very likely to continue to next year.
‘’Due to the depletion of the budget to acquire diesel for the Open Cycle Gas Turbines, Eskom has been forced to strictly preserve the remaining diesel for any extreme emergency situations such as multiple, simultaneous trips of generators.
‘’The pumped storage dam levels also need to be replenished during this time,” said Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha.
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