Megawatt Park in the dark

2007-12-10 14:45

Johannesburg - Megawatt Park was without MegaWatts on Monday when Eskom load-shedded itself.

The power company could not even access its own website to check which areas were without electricity - the server was down, said an official who asked not want to be named.

The Eskom head office in Sunninghill, northern Johannesburg, was without power from 10:00 until at least 12:30.

However, it had already switched off the pumps to its water features on Friday, when it became apparent that the power supply was tight.

Staff had to resort to actually climbing the escalators when they were switched off along with the geysers and the air-conditioning systems last week.

Each Eskom facility throughout the country had a designated official tasked with ensuring - when it became apparent that load shedding might be in the offing - that it was energy efficient.

"Naturally, all Eskom facilities have to be energy efficient," the unnamed spokesperson said.

There were rolling blackouts across the country on Monday when Eskom tried to shed between 1000 and 1500MW.

Apart from maintenance problems, a shortage of diesel was affecting the back-up gas turbines used to generate power in the Western Cape, said Eskom's general manager of demand-side management Andrew Etzinger.

A fixed load-shedding schedule was available on www.eskom.co.za and customers could direct other queries to Eskom's call-centre on 08600 37566.

The call centre was centrally located and was not affected by the power outage at Megawatt Park, Eskom said.

- SAPA