Johannesburg - Eskom and the City of Joburg are promising widespread electrification this year.
And it’s costing these entities about R20 000 per household to provide the service.
The demand for electricity in homes is an often-repeated theme in service delivery protests and was again raised in the Riverlea protest on Wednesday, along with other matters such as housing; protesters said they wouldn’t bother to vote on August 3 unless their complaints were addressed.
On Thursday Eskom released targets which would mean electrifying more houses this year than in any year since 2005.
The utility said it expected to electrify 221 218 homes by the end of this year.
It’s done 38 612 homes in the first quarter of the year (April to June), or only 18 percent of the year’s target and, although that’s more than the targets for that quarter, it does mean working harder the rest of the year to meet the target.
The utility’s annual reports list the results of the electrification programme each year.
Last year Eskom electrified 158 016 homes, slightly less than the year before. In 2005 it electrified 222 314 homes, the highest number in the past 12 years. The total number of homes that Eskom has electrified over the past 12 years is 1 911 088. That’s an average of nearly 160 000 a year.
Eskom doesn’t say how much it costs to link each household to the grid, but working on the government grant funding for electrification of R3.331 billion it received for 2015/16 and the 158 016 homes electrified, that’s about R21 000 a household.
The City of Joburg is also scrambling to meet the demand. On Wednesday, the city said it had electrified 12 850 homes in four informal settlements over the past financial year “and more are in line of being switched on in the coming months”.
The costs and numbers of homes electrified which were listed by the city indicate a cost of about R19 000 a household.
The city said it had been installing a mix of solar and gas power at Stjwetla near Alexandra, and Thembelihle and Lawley Stations.
The Star