Cable theft the culprit for Northside outages
City Power Roodepoort SDC general manager Sibusiso Xulu gives revealing reasons for persistent power outages throughout the Northside.
Residents from Weltevreden Park to Honeydew have been plagued by persistent, unplanned, and often prolonged power outages.
While residents are quick to blame City Power, it is important to consider that there are many factors at play.
According to Roodepoort Service Delivery Centre general manager Sibusiso Xulu, he is every bit as dismayed by the entity’s probable inability to stabilise electricity supply to the Northside as its residents.
Xulu says that 7% of unplanned outages are caused directly by cable theft, 13% by network overload, 34% by equipment failure and 20% by cable faults.
“This amounts to 74% of unplanned outages. The majority of incidences of network overload, equipment failure, and cable faults are caused by cable theft.”
The remaining 26% are attributed to the ageing network (13%), and third-party damage (13%).
Xulu says rumours that the entity is failing to effect maintenance on the system are untrue.
“For example, over the past three years, we’ve replaced 20% of Weltevreden Park’s cables with brand new ones. This is an ongoing project.”
Regarding the notorious JG Strydom Switching Station, which powers 70% of Weltevreden Park, Xulu says that in 2022 a fire caused by cable theft destroyed most of the station.
“We replaced it with six Ring Main Units (RMUs) but unfortunately, we continue to be plagued by cable theft, which causes all our problems.
“A fairly small number of incidents are caused by ageing infrastructure. The most common of these problems are old cables that run dry. These old cables contain a small amount of oil lubrication. A weak point in the cable causes it to overheat, pushing the oil away from the heat. That cable will eventually blow.”
According to Xulu, culprits who commit cable theft and vandalism are responsible for the vast majority of electricity outages throughout the Northside.
He adds that the culprits are, in most cases, not from outside the area.
“There have been cases where workers, temporarily employed by some of our contractors have come back after being without work for a while and have stolen cable to feed their families. But I am sure that a lot of it also stems from people seeing where contractors work and coming back later to steal the cables.
“If you look at where these cables are stripped, in the green belts and open spaces, it requires a fair knowledge of the area to do these things undetected. Also, these cables are large and very heavy, and not easy to transport.”
Look out for the Northsider’s follow-up on this article in the next edition.
