Despite the disastrous effects of load shedding on City Power infrastructure, the City of Johannesburg’s power utility is working hard to ensure minimal impact on residents.
As one of the biggest utilities depending on power supply from Eskom, City Power is being severely affected by unprecedented load shedding.
The reality is that both financial and operational damage is being done, and this will be felt even after load shedding stops.
City Power’s operational staff are overstretched and always on standby to deal with the restoration of power and after-effects of load shedding, as seen during this week.
Rebooting the power grids is to the detriment of already aged infrastructure and will lead to a failure risk of said infrastructure.
The reality is that we have inherited infrastructure that was not regularly maintained, with the backlog standing at R170 billion. This means that whenever it rains, and restorations occur after load shedding, the power system gets weakened and the depots are inundated with power outage reports.
Adding to this, whenever there is load shedding the aged network also takes extreme strain due to the massive load shifting and insurge happening when Eskom cuts and restores the power.
Yesterday certain parts of Johannesburg North experienced extended power outages when local substations tripped and took time to restore.
The harsh reality is that Eskom, likely due to poor planning, cannot provide answers as to how long load shedding is going to last. Any utility is required to constantly plan ahead and put contingency measures in place to ensure that current and future loads buoyed by economic growth, are catered for.
The City is working hard to ensure that our resources are ready and available to address any challenges brought by load shedding. Budgets have been allocated to ensure we address the maintenance backlog and we refurbish and build new bulk infrastructure.
We have invested heavily to ensure that the problems of regular outages and unnecessary trips are avoided or eliminated totally.
On behalf of the DA-led multiparty coalition government, I which to apologise for the inconvenience caused to residents and ensure them that we are determined to continue delivering quality services to all.
Cllr Nico de Jager
MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services
City of Johannesburg
For media queries:
Cllr Nico de Jager
MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services
083 899 2127
