No electricity available,”- MM

“There is no electricity, we are at full
capacity.” This was the response this week from municipal manager (MM) Bob
Naidoo, after the Lephalale Business chamber announced at a press conference last week that there were 13 MVA available for new developments in Lephalale.
Naidoo explained that the Municipality is the only entity licensed to provide and distribute electricity and that no-one
other than Eskom has access to information
regarding the availability of electricity from the Waterberg substation.
“We are running at full capacity which means that our network is already at risk and subjected to possible black outs. We are using 33 MVA.”
Naidoo says they are monitoring the electricity capacity on a weekly basis. “We have met with Eskom who allowed for an extra 2MVA to be added to our grid. This was to provide electricity to develo-
pers who already had agreements with the municipality. Because of the strain on the grid, developers had to agree to install gas stoves, inverter airconditioning as well as solar heating. Why would we ask this of developers if there were an extra 13MVA available?”
The business chamber also announced that a further 40 MVA would be added to the grid by November 2014.
According to Naidoo the municipality is still negotiating with Eskom to make the 40 MVA, which will come from the new substation, available by the end of 2014. Nothing is certain yet.
When completed, the new substation will provide 120 MVA to the town’s grid. - Valerie Cilliers (valerie@noordnuus.co.za)