Maintenance and the refurbishment of ageing infrastructure was a common motivation put forward by municipalities applying for tariff increases above the Nersa guideline of 20.38% for 2011/12. Nersa held public hearings on municipal tariff applications in Pretoria on Thursday. City Power Johannesburg, which proposed an increase of 22%, said the average age of transmission infrastructure has reached 63% of its accepted useful life, and that it needed to build infrastructure to support major projects. Current City Power Johannesburg demand reached 3.6 GW in 2010, and with an already additional 200 000 consumers added to its electricity grid, it expected future demand would be in excess of 5.4 GW.
