Photo: City of Tshwane
In a dramatic turn of events on Friday, a transformer explosion at the Koedoespoort Substation in Gauteng caused significant damage.
The incident impacted a nearby transformer and resulted in power outages across Regions 2, 3, and 6 of the City of Tshwane district.
Tshwane Emergency Services mobilised resources from two fire stations to respond to the emergency.
The team of firefighters successfully quelled the fire once technicians had turned off the power supply, rendering the site safe for emergency operations.
The Energy and Electricity Department (EED) conducted a thorough site assessment on Friday to ascertain the extent of the damage caused by the explosion.
Prior to the incident, technicians had been carrying out repair work at the substation.
Emergency repair work had been carried out after multiple incidents of cable theft were reported less than two weeks ago.
Ironically, the transformer which exploded on Friday – designated as 1C – was not in use at the time of the incident.
It had been left to idle while disconnected from end-users. However, the explosion adversely affected Transformer 1B, which supplies power to some secondary substations in Region 2.
The EED team ran tests on the overhead lines to determine which areas can have power restored.
Given that testing is ongoing, it is too soon to estimate when the electricity supply will be fully restored.
The power outage has affected the following areas:
The explosion initially also impacted Weavindpark, Lindopark, Eastlynn, Jan Niemand Park, Silverton Industrial, Kilnerpark, and Queenswood.
However, those outages had been resolved.
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