Veld fires cause widespread power outages in Johannesburg

A series of veld fires have plunged several parts of the City of Johannesburg into darkness with no estimated time of restoration of services in some areas.

City Power said while the greater portion of areas affected have been restored, some remain in the dark.

Mulbarton, Mondeor and Robertsham substations remain off.

Electricity supply

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said a veld fire caused the Prospect substation to trip at 6 pm on Tuesday, causing an outage that affected homes across several parts of Johannesburg.

“The team on site has managed to partially restore supply and are currently inspecting the lines to reinstate the remaining areas. The veld fires underneath the high-transmission lines in City Deep were found to be the cause of the power supply interruption and outage.

“The flames caused two 88kv breakers on transformers 1 and 3 from Prospect substation to trip this evening around 18h00. Several substations fed from Prospect subsequently lost supply,” Mangena said.

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Mangena said City Power has previously warned residents of Johannesburg against contributing to sparking veld fires, especially closer to servitudes.

“While the actual fire could damage our infrastructure, the dense smoke underneath the transmission lines often creates conditions for the network to trip leading to widespread outages.

“City Power apologises for the inconvenience caused by this outage and would like to assure residents that it’s being treated with urgency. The estimated time of restoration on the remaining areas will be communicated in the following updates,” Mangena said.

Load shedding

Meanwhile, state-owned entity Eskom has significantly improved its generation capacity and turned around its performance.

With over 130 days of no load shedding, Eskom has generated so much power it had to place some units in reserve.

This is in stark contrast to last year when the country experienced severe bouts of rolling blackouts, reaching stage 6 at times.

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