Africa-Press – South-Africa. Power has been restored in the City of Tshwane, except for Soshanguve, after most parts of the city were plunged into darkness on Thursday.
City spokesperson Selby Bokaba said the first outage was experienced at lunchtime when a 132kV line at the Bellom substation tripped after a cable arrester exploded.
“The Skinner Street, River and Edmond substations, which are fed by the Bellom substation, were also affected. This left the CBD, Union Buildings, Arcadia, Sunnyside, Hatfield, Steve Biko Hospital and many other areas without power,” Bokaba said.
Technicians were sent to the site and worked until the early hours of Friday morning to restore power to the affected areas.
Bokaba said while the team was working on the Bellom substation, another explosion took place at the Kwagga infeed substation, which supplies power to a sizeable number of substations, including Atteridgeville, Pretoria North, The Orchards, Rosslyn, Soshanguve, Pretoria CBD, Pumulani and Watloo.
“Another team of technicians was dispatched to the substation. The team also did exceptionally well, with repairs being completed within a reasonable time and the power supply was also restored about 3am.”
The Pyramid substation, which was gutted by fire last Wednesday, has now been energised.
The only outstanding major power outage was in Soshanguve, where some parts of the township are still without electricity after theft and vandalism at the Block X substation on Thursday, affecting Block P, X and Y.
“The city condemns these acts of theft and vandalism and apologises to the affected communities for the inconvenience.”
He said technicians had so far managed to install three medium-voltage switchgear units and were now rerouting the cables into the newly installed units. The estimated time for restoration had not yet been determined.
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