In the past few weeks, Bloemfontein Courant has covered a series of articles on load shedding and comments from readers came flooding in.
According to some readers, they felt that they had been urged to use electricity sparingly, yet Centlec failed to do the same. It was alleged that streetlights were left on during the day in certain areas, and residents felt that electricity was being wasted.
Centlec spokesperson Lele Mamatu had this to say on these allegations, “Street lights are on in certain areas because of the malfunctioning of contactors, which is caused by the loss of signal during load shedding. So, for example, if the streetlights are set to switch off at 06:00 in the morning and there is load shedding at that time, this interrupts signal; thus, causing streetlights to not switch off automatically.”
Mamatu further says that Centlec has measures in place to use electricity sparingly to help address the crisis at hand.
“Centlec has a Geyser Control System to centrally control household geyser energy usage in an effort to use electricity sparingly.”
Bonolo Moloi
bonolo@mahareng.co.za
