The refurbishment backlog of South Africa’s electricity networks at all levels could be as big as R7-billion, the National Electricity Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) said on Thursday.
”The global picture of the backlog is around R7-billion; this is for the entire electricity industry. The problem is much bigger than what we anticipated in terms of backlog,” said Nersa spokesperson Nhlanhla Cebekhulu.
He was commenting on an estimated backlog as at the end of 2005 for utilities audited — 11 big municipalities — of R431-million as released in a report earlier this week.
This figure (R431-million) is expected to grow each year if no refurbishment takes place at the municipalities that were audited.
”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,” the Nersa statement read.
Cebekhulu said the regulator will be in a better position to estimate the real backlog after a follow-up audit of 21 more distributors has been done. ”If we can do these new 21 distributors, we know what needs to be done.”
According to Cebekhulu, there are no serious signals in terms of energy supply, but there are problems and municipalities must fix it ”urgently”. Municipalities are not maintaining their systems with the money they receive from customers. ”We have to protect the interest of the consumers.”
A stakeholders’ summit will be held — including municipalities — once the latest audit has been completed. One of the issues on the agenda will be how the maintenance backlog can be monitored.
Also, Nersa has been ”closely” monitoring Johannesburg’s City Power lately and, according to Cebekhulu, it is doing ”extremely well”. The energy body is expected to start monitoring other municipalities in the same way soon.
This week’s report follows the spate of power outages in 2005 across the country and the release of a technical audit on City Power (Johannesburg) in August 2005.
The technical audit of 11 of South Africa’s largest electricity distributors (municipalities) included Ekurhuleni, City of Tshwane, City of Cape Town, eThekwini, Emfuleni, Mangaung, Msunduzi, Rustenburg, Eskom Southern Region, Eskom North West Region and Nelson Mandela Metro.
It was to determine their state of readiness in providing electricity in the country. — Sapa