VANDERBIJLPARK – Emfuleni Local Municipality and Eskom met with Large Power Users (LPUs) on Wednesday to discuss outages, communication and the reliability of the electricity network.

The meeting took place at the Mayor’s Parlour at Emfuleni’s head Office.

Under the Distribution Agency Agreement (DAA), signed in October 2024, Eskom acts as the municipality’s electricity service-delivery agent, while ELM remains the municipal authority.

According to a statement issued by the Emfuleni Local Municipality tangible work has been done at several substations, including African Metal, Town Substation in Vanderbijlpark, and the Municipal Transmission Station.

The municipality said a damaged cable between Powerville and Randwater, along with an 88 kV isolator, is scheduled to be repaired by 10 October 2026.

There are six active workstreams dealing with substation restoration, cable faults and protection problems.

Another 10 substations/projects are apparently still awaiting refurbishment or upgrades.

ELM acknowledges that the network still suffers from ageing infrastructure, inadequate protection systems and numerous cable faults.