Power report reveals meltdown

The full audit report of the National Electricity Regulator (Nersa) on South Africa’s 11 largest electricity distributors paints an alarming picture of the country’s decaying power distribution infrastructure and of the potential threat to its economic growth prospects.

At a media conference this week, Nersa released an 11-page executive summary of the consolidated report on the audit, ordered last year amid a countrywide wave of electricity blackouts. The Mail & Guardian has exclusively obtained the report.

The detailed audits highlight the scale of the crisis, finding that power networks in most municipal utilities are in a poor state of repair and that, in some instances, contingency requirements have not been met.

‘There are very few formal systems in place for the management of the maintenance process, and more reliance is placed on the individual engineers and technicians for the decisions in this regard.

Housekeeping is poor and operating procedures are not always formalised,” Nersa says.

The report repeatedly emphasises the critical skills shortages in many municipalities, amounting to 50% in Cape Town. It warns of a possible future breakdown of supply systems in Bloemfontein, Durban and the Vaal, and of inadequate capacity in Tshwane/Pretoria.

It highlights the lack of security of certain municipal networks, particularly in the Vaal, which suffers from very high levels of vandalism and theft.

The probe also found that municipal distributors have failed to utilise about R431-million budgeted for maintenance and the refurbishment of resources.

‘This figure grows each year that no refurbishment takes place. The estimate for the average requirement to maintain the present service level in future is R422-million annually, to which the R431-million must be added,” Nersa says.

The annual report on Asgisa estimated the annual cost of power cuts to the economy at R8-billion.

Castigating the government over its perceived lack of urgency in tackling the crisis, the DA is to ask in Parliament why the Nersa report, completed more than a year ago, has only now been released.

Findings of the detailed report, broken down by region, include:

Tshwane Metro Council (Pretoria)

Network capacity in the metro is inadequate to meet the maintenance outage needs at the 275/132kV level, resulting in a lack of maintenance outages and deteriorating equipment. The upshot is ‘unplanned blackouts, customer dissatisfaction, inefficiency and increased costs”.

The report finds maintenance budgets are grossly inadequate, while the system is being managed with reduced personnel and inadequate financial resources.

The deferment of maintenance has led to maintenance backlogs.

eThekwini (Durban)

The report finds that the loss of skilled staff has resulted in the ’embrittlement” of management, which will lead to difficulties in sustaining the system in future.

Although the maintenance plan has been fully executed, a backlog is accumulating.

Cape Town

Reduced funds and limited attention given to maintenance are becoming ‘very visible”, the report says, particularly in the medium-voltage network. A 50% staff shortage has meant a growing reliance on private contractors. The backlog on substation maintenance is estimated at a year and growing.

Ekurhuleni (East Rand)

Acceptable service levels will not be possible in future, unless maintenance and refurbishment and personnel skills improve, the report warns.

It says technical asset management and operation in Ekurhuleni are lagging behind those of other metros.

Technical support systems are lacking, as are common operation and maintenance procedures and modern methods of network asset control and maintenance management. The report says that the skills shortage was repeatedly described as being exacerbated by unrealistic human resource policies.

Nelson Mandela (Port Elizabeth)

Despite the good general state and sustainability of most assets, the report highlights ‘significant evidence of poor housekeeping” which, if allowed to continue, will lead to deteriorating performance.

It also underscores recruitment and human resource practices, which do not appear to be directed at addressing the skills shortage and the widening age and skills gap.

Mangaung (Bloemfontein)

The report warns that maintenance and refurbishment challenges facing the council are ‘reaching the limits” of its capacity. Despite a maintenance plan for the primary plant on the network, which is still in good order, there are ‘alarming deviations”.

In one case, feeder cables to a substation had been out of service for a long period while the replacement cables had been bought and were in stock. No installation contract had been awarded.

The report underlines the lack of skilled staff, ‘unacceptable material receipt and contract times” and problems associated with fleet maintenance. Shortcomings in staff levels, in some cases, are not receiving the required care and attention and service to customers from these sites is not always adequate.

Emfuleni (Vaal)

The report says development and growth in demand have ‘deleted capacities” in parts of the network and that sections no longer comply with required security. ‘The network is generally subjected to an unusually high level of vandalism and theft,” it adds, while the security contract is so poorly managed ‘that it can have no real effect on the problem”.

There is mounting concern about the loss of technical expertise and human resources.

The report says the pilot protection of the networks was reported as ‘almost entirely disabled” and had been in this condition for some years. An interconnector cable stolen many years ago remained out of commission because of financial constraints.

Low-voltage preventative maintenance is not practised in the Vaal and repairs are only made after faults occur.

The report adds that the network is relatively old by international and local standards, with a weighted average age in the range of 30 and 35 years.

Rustenburg

No ‘tangible” maintenance plan is currently in place in this municipality, and ‘no significant methodology” to plan for and deploy maintenance resources.

Maintenance is generally carried out once the plant has failed and repairs must be carried out under emergency conditions.

Almost no skills remain for protection reviews, maintenance of and improvements to the system. The only option is to use private contractors.

The report says the situation on the ground ‘rather dramatically” reflects the haphazard organisation of maintenance functions. The 33kV cable system, the main infrastructure for power supply to Rustenburg, is not fitted with balanced pilot wire protection and cannot be operated closed.

Msunduzi (Pietermaritzburg)

The report slams the maintenance system as ‘rudimentary”, while maintenance is ‘informally controlled and inadequately achieved”. The need for maintenance, refurbishment and replacement of plant was evident at some sites.

It also focuses on environmental precautions in respect of oil spills and fire protection, which it describes as inadequate at high- voltage transformers.

Once again, it highlights ‘an ongoing concern” about the loss of technical expertise and human resources in the municipality.

The costs of being powerless on the East Rand

Eskom could face millions of rands worth of claims from big businesses that were affected by the three-day power failures that struck parts of Ekurhuleni this week. Many parts of eastern Johannesburg, including the area around Eastgate mall, were without power from Sunday until Wednesday evening.

Viviene Pearson, of the South African Insurance Association, said that if any of those affected were covered for losses resulting from power cuts, their insurers would pay out. ‘I advise businesses to find out what they are covered for,” she said.

When asked whether it is possible that insurance companies could make counterclaims against Eskom, she said this was dependent on individual insurance companies, but pointed out that if the sums involved are substantial, ‘some companies may consider such a move”.

Yet, Nhlanhla Cebekhulu, spokesperson for the National Energy Regulator of South Africa, said there are no grounds for companies to sue Eskom for the disruptions. ‘One of the bases of making a claim against the utility is that they have been negligent,” he said. ‘The Regulator has not ruled that [they have been negligent].

‘The outage was based on a technical fault — it is something that can happen.”

Dave and Johan, a hairdressing salon in Bedfordview, was one of the many businesses affected by the power failure. Donovan Grove, a representative of the company, bemoaned the lost trade.

‘We lost three days of trade and it’s a busy week because of month-end,” he said. Grove said they may have lost up to R50000. ‘Our insurance does not pay out for power failures,” he said.

One difficulty, Grove added, would be tracking down customers who were not served and who went elsewhere.

Marlette Hegyr of Outer Images, a beauty salon, said it might have lost up to R20000 because of the power disruptions.

‘Because it is the beginning of the month, I lost a significant amount of business.” She said she would have to pay her workers for the time that they were not doing any work.

Woolworths said it does ‘not disclose details of trading losses due to events such as these”, but explained that it was one of the companies that were able to do business throughout the power outage. Shaheed Hendricks, Woolworths’ head of stores, said the store had a back-up generator, but that it had malfunctioned. This necessitated sourcing yet another back-up generator, and ‘the store was able to return to full trade on Wednesday. Only one day’s trade was lost due to the failure of the back-up generator.” — Percy Zvomuya