Electricity infrastructure in the spotlight

Poor infrastructure maintenance has come under the spotlight again following a fire at the Mooikloof substation that plunged large parts of the east of Pretoria into darkness last week Wednesday.

This was after the substation broke into flames leaving one Tshwane metro worker injured.

Areas such as Moreleta Park, Pretorius Park, Mooikloof, Olympus, Woodlands and parts of Garsfontein were without any electricity, with the metro stating that it would take at least nine days before power would be restored to all areas.

The 26 panels on the roof were also damaged.

ALSO READ: Progress at the Mooikloof substation

Energy expert Chris Yelland said the distribution networks in metros such as Tshwane were in poor shape because of poor maintenance.

“Many of them are old and beyond their ‘end of life’ and poorly maintained,” he said.

“The majority of outages experienced by people in Tshwane and Johannesburg are not caused by loadshedding, but are caused by the failure of equipment in distribution networks of municipalities.”

Cable theft; vandalism; theft of transformers, copper and various electrical equipment; and general failure of the electrical equipment as a result of age; poor maintenance; and frequent switching also contributed.

He said loadshedding by Eskom would not pose any problems to the infrastructure if it was properly maintained and up to standard.

Loadshedding in Pretoria has often led to prolonged power outages in some areas that Yelland said was sometimes caused by stressed transformers, switch gears and circuit breakers.

“If those equipment were in good shape, loadshedding would not be a problem.

“But many of them are weakened by old age and poor maintenance; thus, the loadshedding switching is pushing them over the edge,” Yelland said.

“The other thing to note is that transformers and the majority of old switchgear use oil inside the equipment as an insulating and cooling medium, and this oil is flammable.

“Modern switchgear and circuit breakers do not use oil anymore because of safety hazards,” he said.

“Oil can become contaminated by moist as well as other contaminants like dirt getting into that oil. When that happens, the insulation properties of that oil get worse.

So if you do not replace the oil and do maintenance of the switchgear and transformers when you should, the insulation weakens. This causes a breakdown in the event of things like switching,” he explained.

Burning substations have become common with three local substations burning just months apart this year.

Yelland said the constant power outages were damaging the local economy.

“The cost of loss of power to the economy is enormous,” he said.

“Often, the municipalities do not have any spares because these are old equipment that needs to be replaced. This takes days, sometimes even longer. It leaves businesses or factories or customers without electricity for a long time and that is the real damage.”

One such business owner who has felt the brunt of this was Chare Archary, the owner of Archies Diner at Olive Wood in the east of Pretoria.

Archary said that it cost his business over R5 000 in petrol to run the generator for five days.

“We can’t serve certain menu items because we can’t use the ovens. If there’s no power, we have to limit certain sales. That’s because we can’t keep stock for as long since the generator only powers smaller appliances,” he said.

“We also had to limit the usage of the kitchen due to the generator not being able to run all of the kitchen appliances.

“There is also a delay in the preparation time because we are limited to smaller appliances as we can only run on the gas appliances in the kitchen. This takes a toll on the time it takes for us to make orders.”

Archary said the industry was already taking a beating due to Covid-19 restrictions as well as loadshedding.

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