Eldorado Park substation fire plunges several areas into darkness

City Power says a fire at the Eldorado Park substation which plunged some areas in the south of Johannesburg into darkness is being investigated.

Eldorado Park, parts of Lenasia, Freedom park, Klipspruit, Devland, Pimvillle and the surrounding areas were left without power on Thursday, after a blaze engulfed the substation.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said Eldorado Substation is an 88/11kV substation which has two 45MVA transformers feeding from Orlando Switching Station with three 11kV feeder boards.

“One of the standby feeder boards was badly affected by the fire last night, and require replacement. Transformer 1 was not affected but had to be isolated for safety reasons. However, the secondary cables for all the transformers have been affected and the team is busy repairing them.”

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Mangena said transformer 3 was affected by the fault and require testing which will be completed within 8 hours.

“The feeder board feeding from Transformer 3 was also affected and will be replaced within 4 days. Trenching of the damaged cables from transformer 3 to feeder board 3 has commenced and this will take about 2 days to complete.”

It’s unclear if the fire was started as an act of deliberate sabotage, but Mangena says the cause of the fire will be investigated

“The cause of the fire is still being investigated. Critical units within City Power have been assembled to work on repairs and restoration led by the CEO, Senior Executives, supported by various technical teams and SHEQ officials.

“The Essential Infrastructure Task Teams (EITT) comprising SAPS, JMPD and security personnel have been placed on high alert.”

Mangena said officials will assist in patrolling hotspot areas where cables are likely to be stolen whilst work at the substation is in progress.

City Power says it will update the affected customers on the progress and are already working closely with the local councillors to address the problem.

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