City Power hopes to restore power after Industria substation fire

City Power said work to repair the Industria substation, which was gutted by fire, has progressed well overnight and that power could be restore by Monday evening.

A number of areas in Industria, Johannesburg, plunged into darkness after a blaze broke out at the substation during load shedding on Sunday.

Affected areas

This affected power supply to Industria, Bosmont, Riverlea, Maraisburg, Paarlshoop and Langlaagte, which caused major traffic disruption on Monday.

The fire began at the Industria substation’s feeder boards.

Repairs

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said tests were conducted on the two transformers.

“One was cleared, while work to repair the other will continue today, including replacing control cables for the transformer and incomer.”

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“The work, from this morning, will also include terminating and connecting 11Kv cables from the transformer that passed the tests and jointing and terminating the affected feeder board. Parallel to that, work will continue on the other feeder board 1B,” Mangena said.

Restoration of power

Mangena said there were delays in repairing the damage.

“We had hoped to finish some of the work and restore some of the customers – including those in Industria south, east, part of Riverlea, Paarlshoop – through feeder board 1B, but there were delays.”

“Should all go according to plan, we hope to finish all the work and restore power to the affected customers by this evening,” Mangena added.

Mangena said the investigation into the cause of the fire is still ongoing.

“We will continue updating customers on the progress at the substation. We apologise for the inconvenience caused.”

Load shedding

Meanwhile, ailing parastatal Eskom has warned South Africans to brace themselves for higher stages and further escalation of load shedding this week, as the national grid remains severely constrained.

The grid has been under severe pressure for the past week, as the power utility ramped up the power cuts.

On Sunday, Eskom escalated the deliberate power cuts to stage 6 which was last seen in July, citing further breakdowns at its Kusile and Kriel power stations.

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