The high number of frequent unplanned power outages is of major concern to local businesses, says Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber CEO Denise van Huyssteen.
Since the start of the year, we have recorded 36 power failures in the industrial areas of the metro, which are all non-loadshedding related. “When this happens factories come to a halt and they have to make calls on whether they should suspend production for the day and send employees home. This in turn triggers the additional implementation of short-time and resultant wage losses, as well as production targets not being met and customer orders not being fulfilled timeously.”
Today a 133kV circuit breaker on the Chatty sub-station tripped, causing the industrial areas of Perseverance, Deal Party and Struandale to be without power for a couple of hours, and as of 15H00 today power supply had still not been restored in all the areas.
Incidents such as the power outage of today have become a regular occurrence due to a number of factors, including the damaging impact of loadshedding on the electricity infrastructure which incorporates around 3000 sub-stations located across a wide geographic spread.
“The metro’s electricity infrastructure is aged and has not been upgraded and regularly maintained, and this is further exacerbated by the frequent on / off switching of sub-station power. Switch gear is failing and electrical faults are becoming the norm.”
Van Huyssteen points out that due to the lack of Municipal resources, both budgetary and by way of skilled electricians, proactive planning, fault-finding and trouble-shooting does not routinely occur. “Instead the few over-worked electricians are running from breakdown to breakdown.”
It is vital that the Municipality prioritises the acceleration of processes to ensure that sufficient experienced electricians are appointed so that urgent work can be undertaken to maintain and repair the electricity infrastructure, which is currently in a fragile state.
In addition to the maintenance issues, rampant vandalism of cables and sub-station infrastructure, are further damaging the electricity infrastructure and causing ongoing power outages.
The Chamber in partnership with the Municipality has rolled-out an Adopt A Sub-Station intervention, which enables businesses to extend their own security to sub-stations in their area of operations. “To date 19 sub-stations have been secured in this manner and in these instances, this approach is proving to be effective in preventing vandalism of these specific sub-stations,” she says. “In addition to this we have partnered with The Nelson Mandela Bay District Community Police Board to pilot the concept of communities also playing a role in preserving and protecting sub-stations. It is critical that all citizens of the Metro understand the impact of vandalism on power supply, the economy, jobs and communities.”
The Chamber’s second quarter loadshedding survey among local businesses, revealed that the Nelson Mandela Bay economy has been losing approximately R1 billion a month since the start of this year due to severe loadshedding. “We unfortunately do not have information relating to the cost of unplanned power outages on our local economy but there is no doubt that this is causing additional strain to the viability of business operations. These include amongst others the implementation of short-time, inability to meet orders for local and international customers and the loss of revenue.”