City Power Johannesburg
Power Utilities
City Power Coordinates Outage Response Across Johannesburg’s Electricity Network
City Power Johannesburg is the electricity distribution utility serving over half a million customers across the City of Johannesburg. Established in 2001, it is the second-largest electricity utility in South Africa, second only to Eskom.
Challenge
Managing electricity distribution across a large metropolitan network requires the coordination of customer calls, field resources, contractors, network information, and both planned and unplanned outages.
With more than 3,000 users, including internal staff and external contractors, City Power required an operational environment capable of supporting work and outage management at scale. The organisation also needed to evolve existing systems and paper-based processes to provide greater connectivity between customer interactions, field operations, network management, and back-office systems.
Advanced outage requirements, including emergency dispatch, planned outages, network switching, and communication with affected customers, further required accurate operational and network information to be readily available to the teams responsible for managing service delivery.
Objectives
City Power required a digital operational system capable of managing customer calls received through multiple channels, including CPWeb and My Smart City, while supporting the scheduling and dispatch of emergency and planned work. The solution also needed to provide advanced outage management capabilities, including switch planning, low-voltage (LV) network modelling, and abnormal plant tracking.
Integration with City Power’s wider technology environment was important to connecting customer, network, and operational information, while improved communication capabilities would enable customers to receive relevant information during planned and unplanned outages.
Solution
Forcelink was implemented as one of City Power’s core operational systems, while Powerlink was deployed as its outage management solution. Together, the systems support the lifecycle of customer calls, field operations, and network switching.
Customer calls are logged through multiple platforms, including My Smart City and CPWeb, and integrated with the City’s SAP CRM environment. Once logged, calls are managed through the Forcelink back office, where work can be scheduled and dispatched to field resources. Powerlink provides advanced outage management capabilities. The control centre can model the low-voltage network, track outages, manage abnormal plant, and perform switch planning. Switch planning enables teams to assess how the network can be reconfigured during an outage to limit the number of customers affected while repair work is underway.
Through Forcelink’s mobile solution, field teams can manage outage-related work as well as broader utility activities such as meter inspections, audits, and other field work. Dispatchers in the back office can use scheduling tools to allocate contractors and resources according to operational requirements. Forcelink integrates with ESRI GIS, SAP, and SCADA, connecting customer, network, and operational information across City Power’s technology environment. The system also supports customer communication during planned and unplanned outages. SMS campaigns can be used to communicate outage information, estimated restoration times, and subsequent updates. Planned outages can be communicated in advance using information supported by City Power’s Customer-to-Network Link (CNL) database, which provides visibility of the customers connected to affected sections of the network.
Benefits
Powerlink and Forcelink provide City Power with a comprehensive digital and mobile solution for managing operational and outage-related processes. Real-time call handling and dispatch support the coordination of resources during unplanned outages, while advanced switch planning and Customer-to-Network Link (CNL) capabilities help teams assess network configurations, identify affected customers, and minimise the number of customers impacted. Low-voltage network modelling further supports network visibility, reliability, and safety.
Powerlink also supports the tracking and restoration of abnormal plant following repairs and switching activities, while automated SMS communication keeps customers informed during planned and unplanned outages. Forcelink connects operational information across SAP, GIS, and SCADA, creating a more connected environment for customer, network, and field data. Mobile capabilities support metering, inspections, audits, outage management, and network-related work, with field information returned to the back office in real time to maintain current operational records.
Real-time outage management
1.
Coordinate call handling, dispatch, switching, and field response to unplanned outages.
Smarter network planning
2.
Use CNL, switch planning, and LV network modelling to understand network impacts and minimize customer disruption.
Connected field operations
3.
Manage metering, inspections, audits, outage response, and network work through mobile tools with real-time updates.
Connected systems & communication
4.
Integrate SAP, GIS, and SCADA while keeping customers informed through automated SMS and outage communications.
