South Africa's City Power to replace copper cables with aluminium cables to curb cable theft

In an effort to address the growing frustration of the residents over the recent bout of power outages, City Power, the electricity provider of South Africa, has developed a contingency plan that would help curb both cable theft and network overloads.

City Power acting spokesperson, Yumna Sheik said,”We have started to provide electricity to informal settlements, replacing copper cables with aluminium cables and building infrastructure to curb cable theft.”

The aluminium cable replacement will cost City Power R267 million but Sheik said the value of these cables is far less than that of copper cables. The power utility will, instead of simply replacing copper cables, add measures to substations that will “make it more difficult for cable theft to happen”.

In April, it was reported that City Power has deployed resources to monitor and remedy incidents of cable theft in the greenbelt area of Wilgeheuwel and Struben’s Valley.

Sheik confirmed that the power outages are “definitely not load shedding” - hence, the proactive course of action.

City Power said in April cable theft costs South African an estimated R5 billion. The switch from copper cables to aluminium cables will likely save the economy from suffering huge loss in money and power volume on a sustainable basis.