By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
City Power says that it is unable to keep up with the high demand for mini-substations due to the higher stages of load shedding.
The power utility said that it is losing an average of two mini substations per day due to theft and vandalism across its centres, with the hardest-hit being Roodepoort.
The impact of load shedding is high on our infrastructure, with mini substations and transformers blowing up, or being stolen,” the group said. “Since the recent higher stages of load shedding, City Power has been losing mini substations faster than we can replenish them.”
By Wednesday (18 January), City Power was in need of at least 14 mini substation boxes to deal with several outages in different areas, it said. All the mini substations were vandalised.
“Over the last year, in which Eskom imposed at least 205 days of load shedding, City Power replaced in excess of 390 mini substations, at a cost of R200 million. This is the reason we have currently run out of stock of mini substations,” it said.
More mini substations have been ordered, and the utility is expecting deliveries this coming week.
The group said that the impact of high demand on mini substations has left a huge dent in the utility’s budget – noting that it has already spent 80% of its budget for the whole financial year.
The utility has since embarked on a three-day blitz on Tuesday by disconnecting some businesses, including a church and a TVET college, over non-payment.
On Wednesday, the first stop was the Nigerian consulate in Illovo, which had its electricity cut after allegedly failing to pay a R406 000 bill.
When a convoy of officials arrived at the consulate, the gates were immediately shut, and officials from City Power and the Johannesburg metro were left waiting outside. After half an hour, officials decided to cut the building’s electricity. Consulate representatives came outside the building two minutes later, but it was too late.
The convoy then left for The Catalyst Hotel in Sandton. City Power officials turned off the electricity at the mini substation outside its gates, in full view of hotel guests.
The bulk electricity supplier said the hotel owed it R1.1 million. However, the hotel’s general manager Robert Chifunyise said they were aware of the billing issue and had been trying to clear it up with City Power.
The move is part of the entity’s revenue collection programme, which enters its third and final day.
This is after two days cutting off the electricity supply of defaulting businesses.
City Power also said that only 4% of eligible households and businesses in Alexandra pay their utility bills.
The utility’s spokesperson, Isaac Mangena, said they would be cutting off power to all homes that were illegally connected to the electrical grid.
Mangena said that because illegal connections were prevalent in Alexandra, they were expecting resistance from community members.
“When we go deeper into the township itself, obviously we will have more manpower from law enforcement agencies, so that we can basically deal with this, but I think ours is more about educating the residents, than basically having an adversarial relationship with the residents.”
Mangena said they were looking to raise at least R363 million in revenue from their three-day disconnection drive in the township.