Name:RC DU PREEZ
Organisation:RUSTENBURGLOCALMUNICIPALITY
Contact details (phone and email):083 252 9129 ()
Specific preparations for the event
Rustenburg was in the fortunate position that the stadium is situated in the area of jurisdiction of Rustenburg but in the electricity supply area of Eskom. This really took away a lot of responsibility from us with regard to a safe and secured supply to the stadium.
One of our biggest concerns was that we would not be able to meet the demanmd during the event. Our major point of supply already exceeds the safe transformer capacity with 25 MVA.
In light of the above the establishment of a new incomer supply substation with a final transformer capacity of 240 MVA was approved by council. The aim was to have it completed and energised before the event. This goal was not reached due to the fact that all the activities civil works, switchgear and transformers could not be implemented at the same time as a result of budget constraints. The project had to be spread over 3 years. We therefore had to urgently built a 33 kV overhead line at a cost of R5 million from the main substation to the Eastern side of Rustenburg in order to ensure safe capacity on the existing 33 kV network.
Fortunately the 2008 economical crisis assist us a lot in as far as development is concerned. Several new developments were stop by developers and the anticipated load for 2010 was much lower than originally calculated. We therefore have not experienced any overload situations during the event period.
Rustenburg also had a number of 11000 volt switchgear replaced in our 33/11 Kv substations and therefore very little maintenance on switchgear was done prior to the event.
A few hotels are situated on our rural area of electricity supply and therefore more attention than normal was given on tree pruning along the lines especially on the feeder that supplied the hotel that was used as a base camp.
Our normal standby staff was doubled and we also had a fully equipped private contractor available for the whole period. Very few minor interruptions occurred and the standby personnel were therefore more that enough.
All our major substations were protected by a security company on a 24 x 7 basis.The main reason for this step was to prevent copper theft in substations which could cause major interruptions. No security treat was experienced at any substation during the event.
Summary of supply availability
No major interruptions occurred and we can therefore declare that we were fortunate to reach supply availability close to 100% at all sites supplied by Rustenburg, FanPark, Park and Rides etc.
Treatment of risks
One of our biggest risks was to install the electricity network within the FanPark within a period of two weeks and also to ensure a safe supply to the FanPark. We therefore appointed a very capable consulting company who planned the internal network and also overseen the contractor. The reason for the delay in executing the work resulted from our council who only decided at a very late stage where the FanPark had to be established.
An additional mini-substation was installed in order to split the internal network as well as the lighting feeders. Each mini sub was connected to a standby generator of which one was rented and the other 300 Kva was procured by us for future use.
Not less than 40 000 spectators visited the FanPark during one of the games whilst only 22000 were expected. Any interruption during such an evening could have had severe implications. Fortunately, only one interruption took place during the whole 2010 period with very little effect on spectators.
Highlights
What worked well and why?
We have utilised one of our employees from our Planning Section on a full time basis to attend ALL meetings with other role players. He was therefore always fully informed of what is required where and by when. This really worked well for the co-ordination of activities.
Lowlights
Rustenburg had several Park and Ride sites where lighting was installed. It is our opinion that the lighting levels could have been better. Only basic lighting was provided as a result of insufficient funds that were available for this purpose. This might perhaps be one of the biggest complaints by visitors who utilised the facilities.
Key lessons learnt and considerations for hosting future events of this magnitude
Personally, I don’t think we will do anything else than what was done.
Legacy issues
What process/systems/initiatives will remain post FWC and have helped enhance the way your organisation operates, etc?
Photographs
Unfortunately no photos are available.