City Power spends R500m to revitalise substations

17 November 2015

 

City Power, the City of Johannesburg’s power utility, is to spend more than R500-million over the next three years on the upgrading of six power substations in Region C to increase their capacity and prevent power outages.

The six substations that will be given a new lease of life are in Roodepoort, Wilro Park, Kloofendal, New Fleurhof, Tshepisong and Princess.

The City of Johannesburg’s Member of the Mayoral Committee for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Councillor Matshidiso Mfikoe, says the Roodepoort distribution network will be upgraded from the current 33/6.6kW to 88/11kV.

MMC Mfikoe says the existing network, which is more than 40 years old, has reached the end of its “useful life” and has, as a result, limited capacity to meet increased power demand in the region. MMC Mfikoe says the timing of the investment is crucial in the sense that growth in the designated supply areas has substantially increased, while no significant upgrade of the ageing electricity infrastructure has been undertaken.

She adds that the resultant high electricity demand in the region has led to the power grid in the area becoming constrained, hence the move to give a boost to the electricity infrastructure.

“The equipment has reached the end of its useful life and there are no more spares available or being manufactured. In the event of power outages, it took longer than necessary to restore power,” says MMC Mfikoe.

“We are upgrading the network to make it flexible and robust. We are bringing the latest technology to enable City Power to remotely monitor the network from the control centre to prevent power outages or power loss. This will also help City Power to reduce maintenance costs and increase revenue.”

On completion, 1 000MVA is expected to be added to the utility’s current capacity.

City Power Managing Director Sicelo Xulu says the changes to be implemented in Region C include the following:

• Replacement of the 33kV busbar at Kloofendaal;

• Upgrading of the Wilro Park feeders from the current 33kV to 88kV;

• Replacement of the existing 88/33KV 80MVA and 88/11kV 20MVA power transformers with two new 88/11kV 45MVA ones;

• Allocation of space for a third 88/11kV power transformer, two 88kV feeder bays and 11kV feeder and standby board;

• Removal of two 88kV feeders from Sentraal substation that have become redundant;

• Upgrading of 88kV single busbar to a double busbar with a single buscoupler; and

• Removal of 33kV feeders to Ontdekkers substation.