Cape Town power outages: Technicians still repairing damaged cables

The City of Cape Town on Tuesday morning said it had been working throughout the night on Monday to restore power to Area 7, which includes areas such as the Atlantic Seaboard and parts of Woodstock.

This after parts of Cape Town were plunged into darkness late on Monday due to a fault involving at least one high voltage line that was damaged by fire. The city called it “a technical fault on the grid” on its Twitter account and said the cause of the fire was unknown at this stage.

Councillor Beverley van Reenen, mayoral committee member for energy, said the city’s Electricity Generation and Distribution Department had been working throughout the night to restore power to Area 7 using different supply routes.

Van Reenen said one of the main feeder lines from the municipality’s Acacia High Voltage Substation to Montagu Gardens and Eskom’s Tafelbaai High Voltage Substation was lost due to the fire that affected the infrastructure.

“The city is in the process of rerouting the power supply to the Woodstock area and the reinstallation of damaged cables is well underway.

“As an interim measure to ensure businesses are not severely affected in Area 7, due consideration is also being made to switch on the Roggebaai turbines to supply power to the CBD area,” Van Reenen said in a statement.

She said the city was also working with Eskom to assist with re-energising the Atlantic Seaboard and CBD area as the damage had also affected Eskom’s infrastructure.

“The cause of the fire is not yet known and assessments are still underway to determine the full extent of the damage. The city thanks customers for their understanding and patience,” Van Reenen said.

Capetonians affected by the power outages were encouraged to check for updates on the city’s social media pages.

The following areas were affected:

• Motor Vehicle Registration, Traffic and Drivers Licencing and testing Contact Centre services are not available;

• Accounts and General, limited services are available;

• Water Faults, limited services are available;

• Accounts Payable Queue is out of service.

Compiled by Thapelo Lekabe