Loadshedding in general causes damage to municipal electrical transformers and “damage to houses”. This is not necessarily the case. This has to be corrected and clarified upfront.
(a) Loadshedding in itself cannot reasonably cause damage to houses. Loadshedding itself cannot cause such damage, but there is a possibility that electrical power surges as a result of loadshedding, where voltage rises or falls above or below acceptable thresholds that may cause damage to equipment and / or appliances. Eskom’s customer agreements and conditions of service stipulate these possibilities for which the customers must take reasonable precautions such as, not leaving energised electric appliances unattended.
The remedial action applicable, where negligence on the part of Eskom can be proven, is through the official Eskom claims process and customers may be compensated after a validated claim. In order for customers to plan around loadshedding, Eskom has published its schedules and the stage changes are also communicated as and when they are triggered.
(b) Switching transformers on and off as in the case of loadshedding, is a general Eskom Distribution network occurrence. However, for planned switching or maintenance activities, automatic clearing of network faults occurs via protection operations. The equipment is designed for such eventualities.
Well-maintained networks and transformers should be able to withstand the burden of loadshedding, both on the Eskom network and the municipal networks, however failures can still occur. The Eskom and municipality tariffs also account for the required planned maintenance and /or upgrading and replacement or repairs of failed equipment and it is therefore up to the relevant supply authority such as Eskom or the municipality, to plan and budget for eventualities of such transformer maintenance, repairs and/ or failures.
Eskom Distribution does have such “viable measures” in place in the form of network maintenance and refurbishment strategies and execution plans, as well as strategic transformer spares. Transformer repair contracts with reputable suppliers, internally and external to Eskom are also in place to repair damaged transformers that can be repaired. Eskom Distribution cannot reasonably comment on measures taken by municipalities to deal with transformer failures.