R187 million Heriotdale Substation to boost City Power’s supply to Joburg residents and businesses

11 April 2019

Today, 11 April 2019, I was honoured to officially launch yet another new bulk electrical infrastructure, the Heriotdale Substation, along with MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Cllr Nico de Jager.

This new substation will ensure that stability is added to City Power’s grid in the City of Johannesburg.

Construction of this substation started in the 2015/16 financial year, and the entire project was completed at a cost of R187 million. The construction of the Heriotdale Substation did not only come as a result of needed additional capacity, but also because constrained power supply emanated from the Cleveland Substation. With the completion of Heriotdale Substation, the load that was carried by Cleveland Substation will now be shared between the two substations.

Heriotdale Substation will supply areas on the southern side of the M2 freeway including South Hills, Steeldale and City Deep while Cleveland Substation will supply areas on the northern side of the freeway such as Benrose, Denver and Jeppestown and surrounding areas.

This substation is built with interconnectivity mechanism between itself and Cleveland Substation via an 88kv overhead line. This provides a recourse to City Power to transfer the power load from one faulty substation to the other. This ensures speedy restoration of power to customers while the fault is attended to, thereby minimising the duration of a power outage.

The protection and control room is fitted with Scada, direct current (DC) system and telecommunications equipment, which are very important to monitor, gather and process real-time data in order to convey messages to City Power technicians for early detection of faults on the network.

Heriotdale Substation will also provide 50MVA capacity towards the repairs and renovations happening on the M2 freeway development.

The addition of bulk infrastructure like this substation contributes significantly to reducing Joburg’s R170 billion infrastructure backlog.

The new substation will add significant stability to Johannesburg’s power grid, ensuring that more residents have access to electricity and a reliable supply thereof.

This new substation addresses outages experienced by residents, businesses and industries, especially in the south-eastern parts of Johannesburg due to the age and condition of the Cleveland Substation.

The construction of this substation is part of City Power’s efforts to upgrade, build and refurbish the electricity network across the City. This is ultimately with the aim of ensuring residents continue to receive reliable electricity supply as well as extending power supply to communities that have never had access before.

Therefore, in January’s adjustment budge, City Power was allocated R214.7 million for the electrification of housing developments at Fleurhof, South Hills and Riverside, and a further allocation of R27.5 million was earmarked for the upgrading of the Eldorado Park substation, which was stalled due to corruption under the previous administration.

In addition, City Power has budgeted R450 million this financial year for the construction of substations. This is in an effort to ensure that we phase out the fleet of ageing bulk infrastructure, with some of our substations over 60 years of age.

City Power also recently launched the Sebenza Substation to boost the City’s power supply capacity. An excess of R1.2 billion was invested in this new state-of-the-art substation to benefit residents living in Modderfontein, Gresswold, Sandringham, Alexandra, Athol Oaklands, Rosebank, Melrose and Parkhurst.

As a City, we continue to be committed to ensuring that the best interest of our residents are served, despite our many challenges.

I would also like to thank the members of our coalition government, the IFP, ACDP, COPE, UDM and Freedom Front Plus for their continue support in bringing change to the residents of our city.

Though not a member of our coalition, my thanks also goes to the EFF, who votes with us on an issue by issue basis, for their efforts in helping to bring services to our residents.

Issued by Chantelle Fourie-Shawe, Media Specialist: Office of the Executive Mayor, 11 April 2019