Cape Town’s power infrastructure is under scrutiny after the city recorded over 25 000 electricity faults in January. According to the City of Cape Town’s Electricity Generation and Distribution Performance Monitoring Report, 25 917 electricity fault notifications were logged in January, with 24 697 completed by the end of the reporting period and 5 877 remaining outstanding.
The report highlights that fault notifications are logged on the city’s SAP system and are split between street lighting problems and other electricity faults affecting households and businesses. The city uses several industry indicators to measure the reliability of its electricity supply, including the Average System Interruption Frequency Index (ASIFI) and the Average System Interruption Duration Index (ASIDI).
Reliability of Electricity Supply
The ASIDI target is less than three hours a year, while ASIFI should remain below 1.3 interruptions per year. Another indicator, the Customer Average Interruption Duration Index (CAIDI), measures how long an outage lasts for a specific customer once a power interruption has occurred. The report notes that several factors can affect the reliability of electricity supply, including vandalism, theft, and the wider impact of load shedding on the power grid, as explained on the Eskom website.
Public Lighting Infrastructure
The report also focuses on public lighting across the city, showing the percentage of street lights and high mast lights that are working across both the city’s electricity network and Eskom supply areas. Vandalism has been a particular challenge affecting public lighting infrastructure. Some key statistics include:
- 25 917 electricity fault notifications logged in January
- 24 697 faults completed by the end of the reporting period
- 5 877 faults remaining outstanding
The city is working to improve the reliability of its electricity supply, with maintenance and replacement of high-voltage transformers being carried out. However, the impact of load shedding and vandalism remains a concern. For more information on load shedding, visit the Wikipedia page on the topic.
