Eskom worried about rise in theft of electricity

With temperatures dropping as the country moves closer to winter, Gauteng Eskom said yesterday it had noted with concern a significant rise in network overloading as a result of illegal electricity activities across high-density areas in the province.

The power utility appealed to members of the public to refrain from using electricity indiscriminately, illegal connections, bypassing meters, tampering with and vandalising the electricity infrastructure as this causes overloading of the network and results in damage to cables, transformers and mini-substations.

“Substantially high trends of energy demand are being recorded during peak periods in between 5am and9am and again later, between 5pm and 10pm,”

Gauteng operating unit senior manager for customer services Daphne Mokwena said in a statement.

Due to the rising number of illegal electricity activities such as purchases made from ghost vendors, illegal connections and illegal operating, the electricity infrastructure is starting to fail.

“This puts a strain on the repair and replacement of the failed assets. Eskom will have to intensify load reduction in order to protect these assets from repeated failure and explosions, firstly focusing on high-density areas and those with multiple and/or backyard dwellings,” she said.

“Secondly, customers identified as not paying for their electricity services will be disconnected, as we intensify our credit management and also proactively prevent the failure of these assets and prolonged outages.”