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Business and sustainability performance review  
SECURING CONTINUITY OF SUPPLY  
 
Load shedding – demand exceeds supply | Stabilisation and recovery plan | Generation plant performance  
 
Transmission system performance | Distribution system performance | Primary energy  
   
 
Transmission system performance    
   
  Apollo substation in Gauteng
  Apollo substation in Gauteng.
   
   
 
Measure   Description of measure
(and unit)
Target 
2008 
Actual 
2008 
(include 
load 
shedding)
Actual 
2008 
(exclude 
load 
shedding)
Actual 
2007 
  Comments
Number of interruptions   Interruptions affecting the continuity of supply ≤36  49  48  28    Not achieved. A significant deterioration from last year and worst performance since 2002. See comments below
Number of system minutes lost   Total number of system minutes lost (for incidents of less than one system minute) ≤3,90  3,56  3,56  3,67    Results within target, although the number of interruptions increased
Number of major incidents   Records number of incidents with a severity greater than one system minute           Not achieved
    – severity degree-one (1, but less than 10) ≤1    The five major incidents of degree-one severity were the result of equipment failure
    – severity degree-two
(10, but less than 100)
   
    – severity degree-three (100)   The degree-three incident was the result of load shedding
Number of line faults   Number of transmission line faults per 100km ≤2,2  2,31  2,31  2,43    Not achieved, although this is an improvement from last year’s performance
   
 
Comments on Transmission’s system performance

Transmission’s performance was significantly impacted by the high number of interruptions experienced during the financial year. This is Transmission’s worst performance since 2002. Equipment failure contributed significantly to the poor major incident performance. Various preventative and corrective actions have since been identified to address the poor interruption performance.

Benchmarking Transmission’s performance

Transmission is actively involved in the International Transmission Operations and Maintenance Study (ITOMS™) which compares performance and identifies best transmission industry practices worldwide. Benchmarking Transmission’s performance against other similar utilities has proved to be challenging, since transmission businesses differ a lot in terms of network characteristics and processes and, therefore, performance levels vary as well. The end result is that benchmarking is nearly impossible.

  Click here for more details on the major incidents.

 
utes for incidents less than one system minute
 
Transmission maintenance and refurbishment

The average age of plant in the transmission network is 31 years. The oldest substations and lines are 52 years old. This calls for a high level of network plant and equipment maintenance and also refurbishment and replacement of plant that has reached the end of its useful life.

Transmission completed 94,7% of all planned and unplanned maintenance work for the year (2007: 95,6%). The main reasons for not completing all maintenance were skills shortages, delays in delivery of spares and outage constraints. The delays were mostly in the Western Cape, Southern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

During 2008 the following major refurbishment projects were carried out:
  • upgrading of insulation on the west and southern Cape coastal substations and lines
  • refurbishment of the Apollo converter substation
  • refurbishment of 400kV shunt reactors
  • refurbishment of power system protection schemes

  Click here for details of transformer conditioning monitoring research.

 
Number of transmission line faults per 100km
 
   
 
Transmission system performance       Back to top