No more deadly squabbles over electricity theft at Amarasta settlement

Residents of the Amarasta Informal Settlement in Alexandra will no longer have to steal connections to electricity from their neighbours and trigger deadly squabbles. The residents will soon have their power generation service once City Power, an implementing agent of the Gauteng Energy Response Plan, officially switches on the country’s first-of-its-kind solar micro-grid project in Alexandra to service the community.

This comes after a site visit by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi and COGTA MEC Mzi Khumalo to assess the progress of the ongoing refurbishment of wind turbines and the micro-grid installation project, which is now close to completion.
They were joined by the MMC of Environment and Infrastructure Services, Cllr Jack Sekwaila along with City Power board chairperson Bonolo Ramokhele and CEO Tshifularo Mashava.

The purpose of this innovative and clean energy project is to provide reliable electricity supply to the informal dwellers, by harnessing the power of the sun. “We are pleased to see the significant progress that has been made here in ensuring that this community that has been without electricity since settling here, finally gets to receive it.”
“We thank all our partners, the City of Johannesburg and its entity City Power, which is acting as our implementing agent of the province’s energy plan as the team has managed to deliver on time and within budget on all projects that they have been tasked with,” Sekwaila added.

The work of mounting a 1MVA solar grid that will provide electricity to around 500 households, is near completion, with the team anticipating the completion of the pilot project before the end of next month (March).
This is part of Gauteng’s commitment to renewable energy and building sustainable power generation, to lighten the burden on Eskom. Microgrids are, in a nutshell, local electricity grids that serve small populations, often powered by renewable resources and able to function independently from a larger network.

Once the pilot project in Alexandra proves effective, they will be rolled out in 14 other informal settlements in the province as part of the energy crisis response plan.
Addressing the beneficiaries in the Amarasta in Tsutsumani, Lesufi pleaded with them to protect the infrastructure. “If you allow this investment to be vandalised after so much work and resources have been put in, we will not come back and repair it. We have other communities that are equally in need of such a facility.”

One of the multiple economic spin-offs from the solar micro-grid project is around powering the electric vehicle economy, particularly in the townships. “These solar grids have been enabled to also accommodate charging stations for electric vehicles.
“So, partnering with automotive businesses in the area that produce electric vehicles could significantly benefit the township economy,” said Ramokhele.

Meanwhile, some of the residents in the informal settlement have confessed that due to years of no access to electricity, they had to resolve to steal supply from their neighbours, creating tensions between these communities, which in some instances, ended in violent confrontations.

Ramokhele said the provision of electricity for the Amarasta community will not only help in addressing violent confrontations but also create jobs and an enabling environment for local businesses to thrive, without being interrupted by load-shedding.
A community of close to 80 people from the area were hired, the majority of them, women. In addition to that, he said 12 small medium, and micro enterprises were also involved in the project development.

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