Today, I conducted an oversight visit of the refurbishment operations underway at Sebenza Power Substation in Johannesburg.
Currently, the City is investing a billion Rand to ensure that Sebenza Substation begins to provide much needed relief to residents.
Sebenza Substation is a buffer bulwark supply facility currently being built to mitigate against power outages arising from electricity demand exceeding supply.
The multi-party government inherited an electricity network that required urgent attention. In many parts, infrastructure had been built decades ago for communities that have now grown substantially in size. 27% of the City’s bulk transformers have been running past their Useful Lifespan, producing a staggering 177 000 low voltage outages in 2017/18.
Over the past few months, the north-eastern parts of Johannesburg have endured frequent power outages arising from these challenges.
Our visit to the Sebenza Substation marks the occasion in which a new second transformer has come online, which effectively doubles the electricity output of this facility. Its impact on stabilising the grid will be profound, greatly reducing the instability of electricity supply to the North-Eastern parts of our City.
Later this year, a third transformer will be installed at the Sebenza Substation which will achieve a massive improvement in the stability of the electricity grid throughout Johannesburg.
This project is rooted in the Diphetogo strategy of addressing the enormous inherited infrastructure backlogs that plague communities with service delivery disruptions. The prioritization of this work in the 2018/19 budget will begin to achieve the long-term turnaround of the City and the change demanded by its residents.
The significance of the work at the Sebenza Substation is intrinsically linked to the broader project of change in our City. It demonstrates not just the scale of the inherited challenges but also the impact the multi-party government is achieving to provide quality services to our residents.
Cllr Herman Mashaba
Executive Mayor
City of Joburg
Media queries:
Omogolo Taunyane
Office of the Executive Mayor: Media Specialist
Tel: 011 407 7527
Cell: 079 451 5211
Email: omogolot@joburg.org.za
