Fresh load shedding crisis hits Joburg

The City of Joburg’s power utility, 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 group 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.

“Due to continued theft and vandalism of mini substations in the middle of load shedding and stock shortages, we are currently having 14 mini substations which need to be replaced across all eight SDCs.

“On average, one mini substation supplies 100 households depending on the size, which will explain the number of calls we may get every time a single mini substation is vandalised or blows up.”

The areas impacted by vandalised mini substations in Roodepoort include Lufhereng, Roodepoort CBD, JG Strydom, Witpoortjie, Wilgeheuwel, and Weltervreden.

“Unfortunately, the above areas, and those in other SDCs, cannot be restored until we receive the stock of mini-substations,” it said.

“We appeal for calm and patience from our customers as we work hard to address this shortage.”

The alert from City Power is the latest in a string of warnings sent out to residents in South Africa’s major cities since entering high stages of load shedding last week.

Cities have warned of extensive damage being done to infrastructure due to systems not being designed to handle the on-and-off nature of load shedding – while other critical infrastructure that depends on constant power supply – like water facilities – are being damaged by extended periods in the dark.

The cities have also warned of elevated levels of crime that take place during outages, including but not limited to cable theft and vandalism.

Read: Cape Town and Joburg on high alert as all-day stage 6 load shedding hits