City Power crisis with overload, cable theft and vandalism

City Power services Lenasia and nearby areas in Johannesburg, but they are facing significant challenges. Cable theft, vandalism of TSS Substations, mini substations, and electricity overloads are major issues, often leading to trips at the main substation. 

In a recent discussion, Lenasia SDC General Manager Nelson Ravuku addressed these concerns, highlighting the impact on service reliability and ongoing efforts to mitigate these problems. He emphasized the need for community support and collaboration to improve the situation and ensure a stable power supply.

Vandilsm and overload causing disruption: 

Vandalism contribute to solidness of the station and pose a risk to the transformer to be burnt. 

"Overloading significantly affects the power supply, particularly when communities exceed their allocated electricity usage. Illegal connections exacerbate this issue, leading to even higher demands that can overwhelm substations. This not only risks shutdowns but can also cause severe damage, including burnt cables and compromised infrastructure. Addressing these illegal connections is essential to ensuring the stability and safety of the power supply," said City Power's GM Ravuku.

He added that cable theft, overloading and vandalisism can cause prolong outages and costs City Power a lot of money to replace. 

Street lights:

City Power has hstreetlights pole and maintenance poles.If connection come from maintenance pole it's a problem to fix and can take longer than usual to fix due to locating the fault especially if its cable fault.

Informal Settlements:

Informal settlements often face challenges in accessing reliable electricity, leading residents to connect illegally to power sources like mini substations, streetlight poles, conductor overhead and pillar boxes. This practice can be dangerous and result in frequent power outages or safety hazards. Communities often lack proper infrastructure, making legal connections difficult and prompting reliance on these informal methods. Addressing these issues requires improving access to legal electricity services and upgrading infrastructure.

Logging a call and time around time: 

Logging calls is crucial for assessing team performance and operational efficiency. It allows City Power to analyze call volumes, identify trends, and measure turnaround times, ultimately improving service delivery to residents. This data-driven approach helps allocate resources effectively and enhances overall customer satisfaction.

Ravuku explained that queries are segregated as per their types, whether it's, legal, customer disputes or no power.

Ravuku expresses his concerns about cable theft and has urged that the residents must take ownership of the network and protect it from theft and vandalism. Community must stop bypassing electricity, 

He ended by saying that have not found any issues of sabotage on their substations