By: Mvuyo Tyobeka

Across Africa’s engineering and industrial sectors, debate continues to focus on new capacity — new generation projects, new industrial corridors and expansion programmes. Expansion is necessary. But instability is not caused only by what has not yet been built. It is also caused by how rigorously existing infrastructure is maintained.

Research by development institutions continues to show that infrastructure instability constrains productivity across Sub-Saharan Africa. In South Africa, electricity disruption has suppressed growth and increased operating costs in energy-intensive industries. These impacts are frequently discussed in the context of generation and grid supply constraints. While industrial operators actively manage internal asset performance, the broader energy debate seldom reflects how reliability within facilities also shapes economic stability.

Medium- and high-voltage infrastructure is a primary determinant of whether operations remain stable under real conditions. When these systems underperform, the impact is immediate. Plant sections trip unexpectedly. Restart sequences extend beyond planned windows. Equipment operates closer to thermal and mechanical stress limits than intended by design. What appears to be a minor disturbance quickly becomes a production event.

In many cases, installed electrical infrastructure is operating under conditions that exceed original design assumptions. Loads have increased. Environmental exposure has intensified. Replacement cycles have been extended. In this environment, calendar-based maintenance may satisfy compliance requirements, but it does not necessarily prevent failure.

In high-risk environments, engineering discipline increasingly relies on condition-based decision-making. Dissolved gas analysis trends must trigger intervention before insulation breakdown. Thermal anomalies must be investigated before they become loose connections or phase imbalance. Protection relays must be tested not only for function, but for accuracy within specification. These are practical engineering controls. They determine whether systems remain predictable under load.

Many reliability failures begin not with catastrophic events. They begin with tolerances that are slightly out, connections that are marginally hotter than they should be, protection settings that are assumed to be correct because they passed a previous test. Over time, those small deviations compound.

Transition phases carry particular risk. After refurbishment or modification, verification under live operating conditions is essential to confirm system behaviour. Completion documentation confirms scope delivery, but resilience is ultimately demonstrated under operational load.

For industrial operators pursuing expansion and energy transition objectives, capital investment in new infrastructure must be matched by equal discipline in maintaining what is already in service. Sustained attention to installed asset integrity must accompany new capacity development to ensure system resilience.

Boards and executive teams are placing greater emphasis on measurable reliability indicators. Uptime, mean time between failures and response discipline are not merely maintenance statistics. They are indicators of operational leadership and governance maturity. Insurance assessments and oversight frameworks are moving in the same direction.

Infrastructure failure is seldom a capacity problem alone. In many cases, discipline gaps emerge first.

The engineering question is not whether failure will occur. It is whether discipline intervenes before the system decides for us.