The cause of the early morning power outage that left large parts of Ermelo without electricity for nearly six hours on Monday morning has been confirmed.
Technicians from the Msukaligwa Electrical Section found that a rat had made its way into a switchgear panel at the 88/11kV high-voltage distribution station south of Autumn Ridge, causing a massive short circuit.
An electrician explained that the rodent had possibly crossed the circuit breakers and bridged the live points, causing an electrical flash. Because of the high voltages involved, the flash then quickly incinerated the rat and deposited carbon dust on the switchgear.Carbon is a conductor of electricity and therefore creates a short circuit causing the cables and switchgear to blow out.
Technicians were hard at work early on Monday morning replacing burnt cables and cleaning the carbon residue from the panels..
The power was restored again shortly before 11:00 but was interrupted again in the afternoon.
The cause of the second outage was not known by the time of going to print on Tuesday.
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