Officials from City Power and Ward 97 Councillor Jacques Hoon introduced a new electrical infrastructure upgrade to the community on Tuesday evening, May 31.
Also read: https://www.citizen.co.za/roodepoort-record/2022/04/16/ward-97s-infrastructure-conundrum/
Interested parties from across the ward were eager to hear what progress had been made regarding their ongoing energy crisis. The suburbs within Ward 97 have been blighted with power outages for several years and 2022 has seen an increase in frequency of outages as well as their duration. The majority of the households within the ward draw their electricity from the Christiaan de Wet substation, which is relayed through the Peter Road substation, and this upgrade with aim to alleviate the strain on those overloaded lines.
Beginning as soon as possible, the project will link the Lutz substation situated on the corner of Johan and Deysel Roads to the Dalkeith substation in Cosmo City.
The 4,8km cable will run through Wards 100, 114 and 97 and will feature a 132kV aluminium cable protected by a concrete slab to help prevent theft or sabotage.
The project has been in the pipeline for several years but budget has just been approved, requiring the project to begin with haste.
Also read: https://www.citizen.co.za/roodepoort-record/2022/04/05/deysel-poad-power-nightmare-continues/
Lutz substation was completed over a decade ago and has sat powerless since. This new line creates both a necessary feeder line between the main Eskom distribution point and a second intake for the ward.
The project will cost R149 million with R60 million of that needing to be allocated within the next few weeks. Of that R60 million, R48 million will be allocated for materials and R12 million for labour.
For the 16-month project as a whole, R29 million will be allocated for labour costs and the remainder for materials.
Some came to hear about the intended infrastructural improvements while others were more focused on the distribution of the opportunities for the communities.
Each ward will have its own Community Liaison Officer (CLO) positions reporting to the main contractor, with the number of local SMMEs and labourers employed relative to the length of cable being installed within each ward.
Adverts for the CLO positions will go out this week, with the project needing to begin by the end of June.
Questions from the community included the levels of customer service at the City Power call centre, smart technology that would allow City Power to manage their infrastructure remotely, and measures to prevent overloading.
In response, a City Power project manager stated that the call centre fell under the City of Johannesburg’s jurisdiction, that the on-going installation of fibre would assist in remote communications, and that city-wide plans were in place to have lines reconfigured in series in order to stagger restorations.
The line to Dalkeith was not the only approval in the budget for new projects. A new multipurpose centre in Zandspruit and a new 88kV transmission cable between Lutz substation and Peter Road substation would also be on the cards.
Councillor Hoon thanked the residents of the ward for the constant pressure they put on entities as well as the work done by his predecessors in making the projects possible.
