City Power Reveals Why Joburg Faces Frequent Power Outages
Johannesburg residents continue to endure frequent power outages, with City Power struggling to keep the lights on. The utility cites aging infrastructure, electricity theft, and billing failures as the primary causes of its challenges. However, City Power has outlined an action plan to address these issues and improve the city’s electricity supply.
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Why is Johannesburg Experiencing So Many Power Outages?
City Power is losing billions annually, with technical losses amounting to R1.5 billion and nontechnical losses exceeding R2 billion over the past year. The biggest contributing factors to these outages include:
- Aging Infrastructure: Many transformers are over 90 years old, while a healthy transformer should last around 35 years with proper maintenance.
- Suboptimal Network Design: Old and overheating equipment causes frequent failures.
- Electricity Theft: Illegal connections and tampering result in nontechnical losses of around 20%.
- Billing Failures: Some industrial and commercial customers were not being billed at all, impacting revenue collection.
- Bad Weather: Storms and extreme weather conditions worsen the already fragile power grid.
City Power’s Plan to Fix Joburg’s Electricity Issues
Despite these challenges, City Power CEO Tshifularo Mashava assured residents that the utility is actively working on solutions to stabilize the power grid. The plan includes:
1. Upgrading Outdated Infrastructure
City Power is prioritizing modernization efforts by heavily investing in its secondary plant to improve remote monitoring and operations. This increases visibility from 40% to 100%, allowing for better fault detection and quicker repairs.
2. Securing International Funding
The City of Joburg’s finance team and group governance have helped secure international investment to fund infrastructure upgrades. This financial boost could arrive as early as September 2025, helping to address aging equipment and expand renewable energy initiatives.
3. Implementing Load-Limiting Technology
As part of a medium- to long-term strategy, a load-limiting technology will be developed to reduce the impact of blackouts. This will require customer cooperation, but if successfully implemented, it could lessen the severity of outages during peak demand periods.
4. Fixing the Billing System
From April 1, 2025, full control of billing operations will be introduced to improve accuracy. This means fewer estimated bills and better revenue collection, which will help fund infrastructure upgrades. A clean-up initiative is also underway to ensure all customers are billed correctly.
5. Increasing Workforce to Address Backlogs
Staff has been recalled from leave and increased overtime to clear the electricity outage backlog. Additional technical reinforcements have been deployed to speed up repairs and maintenance.
Will These Fixes Work?
City Power acknowledges that past decisions to focus on expansion rather than maintenance have led to today’s crises. However, with new funding, modern technology, and a commitment to fixing billing inefficiencies, Joburg could see gradual improvements in power stability.
The success of these plans will depend on effective implementation, community cooperation, and continued investment in Johannesburg’s electricity infrastructure.
