From Wednesday (June 16), many areas of Ladysmith were plunged into darkness, leaving residents frustrated and with no reason given to them for the power outages.
Alfred Duma Local Municipality released the following message regarding the electrical issues facing the Technical & Infrastructural Services of the municipality…
On June 16, 2021, the Department of Technical & Infrastructural Services – Electrical Engineering Services experienced multiple electrical faults within the electrical system. The faults were caused by multiple medium voltage cable failures.
This led to areas within Ladysmith town being without electricity. The areas that were affected were Modelkloof, Danskraal Industrial Area, Mkhamba, Observation Hill, Hospital Park and Diamana Road.
The electricity team attended to the initial faults from 12:00 on June 16 in trying to normalise the situation and by 23:35, most areas that were affected had their power restored.
Also read: Electricity expected to be back soon
Due to the nature of the faults that were experienced and the state of the underground cables, more faults were then experienced, since the cables could not withstand the amount of fault currents that were in the system. This then led to other areas being affected.
On June 17, the electricity team commenced again at 07:30 with the task of locating the faults still within the electrical system that were affecting parts of Observation Hill, Hospital Park, Umkhamba and areas around Diamana Road.
A cable fault was located and repaired in Leeu Street in Observation Hill, faulty electrical equipment was removed from Carbineer Road in Hospital Park, and a cable fault was located and repaired in Diamana Road.
When the power was restored at around 18:00, the 132kV 20MVA transformer which feeds all these areas (at the Newcastle Road sub-station) tripped due to overload. This then necessitated further investigation and we found that new cable faults had occurred.
The team worked tirelessly around the clock, and power is now restored to all affected areas.
Council has noted the inconvenience caused and are highly apologetic.
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