”Winter is the nightmare for utilities,” said City Power vice-president Silas Zimu as call-centre operators fielded calls from irate, cold and powerless Johannesburg residents on Thursday.
To control the flood of enquiries, a recorded message informed callers there were power failures in Lenasia extensions one, two and six, Bryanston, Kyalami on Oak Drive, Constantia Kloof and Florida.
On Wednesday a tripped transformer in Fordsburg, one of the older parts of the city, caused a similar outage, leaving businesses without generators idle and homeowners cold and unable to cook food.
”The network of Johannesburg is old and was meant for the original mining industry,” said Zimu.
As the city boomed, with commercial and residential expansion, so did the demand for electricity.
Expanded commerce and industry, townhouses, clusters, people running businesses from their homes, and the conversion of grand homes on the older big properties into 20-home housing complexes have placed an enormous burden on the city’s power structure and the older, narrow cables, which have not all been replaced yet.
”Flattening one old Houghton property and building 20 townhouses means that there will be 20 stoves, 20 geysers, running on that property,” Zimu said.
There is a huge demand for electricity with homeowners converting garages into cottages, shopping malls expanding, and clinics and schools being built.
”Electricity thieves”, mainly around Lenasia and Alexandra, make illegal connections that overload substations.
The most brazen steal the whole substation, selling it for scrap.
”In Roodepoort there was a lot of initial development where the power infrastructure was put in but the houses and businesses weren’t built.
”I have put up a R10 000 reward to catch these people. Last week three people were arrested. They got R36 for the metal and caused an eight-hour outage,” said Zimu.
Sometimes the technicians doing the upgrades simply install the incorrect cables, he added.
”It’s understandable that people are frustrated.”
However, he said that for the past two-and-a-half years huge upgrades have been taking place and on July 1, City Power will get R400-million to continue this work.
”We have approached the manufacturers and they are working out what we need. I have never had such a passion,” said Zimu.
However, until 2007, the date the work will be complete, consumers can take measures to help prevent power cuts.
These include switching off heaters, lights and geysers when not in use and not making illegal connections, Zimu said. — Sapa