West campus residences left in the dark
West Campus and its three residences were left without electricity for nearly five hours on late Wednesday afternoon. Wits residences, especially the Highfield residences in Parktown are prone to power cuts during the peak of winter.
Campus Development and Planning (CDP), who are responsible for implementing power outageprevention strategies on campus, had said earlier this week, they were prepared for winter with two generators recently constructed.
According to CDP Director Emmannuel Prinsloo, the construction of two generators on West and East Campus was “to provide emergency backup power to the university in times of load shedding as had been the case two years ago or when unscheduled power supply interruptions are experienced.”
Students at res will also benefit from this, as all resident houses are in the process of been added onto the system. This will ensure that in case of load shedding, lights and plugs will still be available.
The national power utility Eskom have said that power supplies are on knife edge as winter approaches.The New Age quoted Eskom spokesperson Hilary Joffe confirming that “the system is very tight,” but no load shedding was schedule yet.
However City Power Johannesburg released the schedule for load shedding on Wednesday.
PIMD (Property and Infrastructure Management Division) and CDP were not available to comment about Wednesday`s power outage on West campus.
Check out www.witsvuvuzela.com for the link to the load shedding schedule.
