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Last Thursday, 7 February, the Executive Mayor of Joburg, Herman Mashaba launched the Sebenza Sub-Station in the north-east region of the City of Johannesburg.
Sebenza Substation is currently a buffer bulwark supply facility, which was built to mitigate against power outages arising from electricity demand exceeding supply across the City.
Mashaba said at the event: “This is a significant milestone in the multi-party government’s efforts to provide services that will improve residents’ quality of life through reliable power supply. This also goes a long way in bolstering economic activity throughout the City, particularly with Johannesburg being a strategic driver for Gauteng and South Africa’s growth for jobs and ease of doing business.”
The City invested in excess of R1.2 billion for the new state of the art substation to benefit residents living in Modderfontein, Gresswold, Sandringham, Alexandra, Athol Oaklands, Rosebank, Melrose and Parkhurst.
Mashaba said the multi-party government took over an electricity network “that required urgent attention” – adding that 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.
The City believes the prioritization of this work in the 2018/19 budget will begin to achieve the long-term turnaround of Joburg and the change demanded by residents.
The project in its entirety is comprised of four transformers. However, the substation will work with three transformers with the capacity of 315MVA each in the interim. The fourth transformer will be installed at a later stage, which will then connect to a 400kV network in totality.
