CAPITAL: The Voice of Business Issue 1, 2015 | Page 58

ELECTRICITY

The high-voltage installation at the Northdale substation during
construction. Three new transformers are now installed there and will
soon be connected to the city’s electrical grid. PHOTO: Supplied.

Billion-rand power plan
MSUNDUZI Municipality is now busy with
the first phase of an almost R1 billion plan
to upgrade the electricity network of the
city, said head of electricity at the municipality, Sabatha Nomnganga.
It is a 25-year projected-growth plan to
ensure future demand can be met, he said,
adding that the plan is to “integrate and
upgrade” the city’s electricity grid.
“A city of this size should have interconnectivity options, in case of failures and for
stability.”
Nomnganga said that the entire network is being upgraded from 33 kilovolts
to 132 kV and once this is complete and
the city’s network is stable — hopefully
by 2017 or 2018, depending on funding
— the city will be “looking to get fed from
275 kV by Eskom”
.
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| Issue 1 | Capital

“This will save us R60M annually,” he said,
explaining how the rates charged by Eskom for this feed are lower.
In this first phase of the upgrade, the
municipality has been focusing on highvoltage installations at major substations
in the city. The installation of three new
transformers for Northdale is complete
and will soon be connected to the grid, and
two temporary transformers are being installed at Mkondeni substation to replace
the one in place there now. Nomnganga
said that this is for interconnection reasons

Once this first phase is complete
the municipality will look at
reticulation in the next phase.