Long-lasting power outages attributed to overloaded distribution network due to illegal connections
“The network gets overloaded, especially in winter as people sleep with heaters and other warming appliances on."
A lack of maintenance to power stations due to under-collection in municipal revenue and overloading of the distribution network are some of the reasons behind the constant long-lasting power outages in Pretoria and throughout the country.
This was the view of energy expert Chris Yelland on the several long-lasting power outages that have hit the Pretoria region recently.
Yelland attributed several reasons that shed light on the continuous power crisis.
“One of the possible factors that might have led to the high power outages at the doorstep of the winter season, was the overloading of the distribution network,” Yelland said.
He said this was due to a high level of power usage overwhelming the distribution network resulting in damaged electrical equipment, such as transformers catching fire, which the municipalities have no money to repair.
“Overloading in the distribution network is not the same as overloading of the power stations (this leads to load shedding), but the
overloading of equipment in the local level transformers switch gears and cables,” he explained.
“The network gets overloaded, especially in winter as people sleep with heaters and other warming appliances on.
“Not only that but it’s made worse by the theft of electricity, because when you do not pay for electricity, you do not care about the amount of electricity you spend,” he said.
Illegal connections is a complex issue alluded to social, economic and political issues together, he said.
“The lack of electrification of the hundreds of continuous rising unplanned informal settlements due to urbanisation plays a huge
role in the rising level of illegal connections and subsequently, low revenue collection,” said Yelland.
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He said municipalities were running low on cash as they were not getting enough money over the amount of electricity used due to illegal connections which further crippled the entities from improving electrical structure to meet the demand.
Yelland said although the settlements were not planned, electrifying these would alleviate the power crisis and contribute positively to the collection of revenue to the struggling municipalities.
“The problem with these communities is that they do not get electrified for years and people end up resorting to illegal connections, one example of this would be Zandspruit that has not been electrified for 20 years.
“Meanwhile, people; children and women end up dying from illegal connections.’’
Yelland said South African municipalities compared to rest of the continent had done a good job in this but still, they have not matched the demand.
Furthermore, Yelland warned that the instability in the economy posed by the Covid-19, could see more people resort to illegal connections pushing municipal revenue to the brink of collapse.
“As the cost of electricity increases and the economy is struggling, people are finding electricity simply unaffordable and as a result they resort to electricity theft.”
He said the only solution to the power crisis would be regular maintenance of power stations, electrifying of informal settlements for
better revenue collections and build-up of new stations to meet the ever growing demand.
Meanwhile, the Tshwane metro reported running out of transformer stock due to high demand from across the metro during this winter.
Parts of Pretoria experienced long-lasting power outages with Eersterust, parts of Pretoria East, the Moot and Soshanguve went three to four days without power last week, with some parts of Mamelodi going on three weeks in the dark.
Tshwane metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba said Mamelodi extensions 12, 18 and 22 constantly operated under heavy strain due to illegal wire connections on the electricity network.
This was a major cause for the pole-mounted transformers to frequently blow up and fail due to overloading as they were operating above their rated capacity.
“We have continued to make enquiries throughout the stores with the hope of getting delivery of new stock of pole mounted transformers, but thus far we had no luck.
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