Residents were left without electricity for nearly three days following cable theft at the Windsor substation, and the delays in replacing the stolen cables on one of the transformers.
The theft happened during load-shedding at midnight on September 28 and roughly half the areas affected had their electricity restored on September 30.
Power was restored to the remaining areas the following day, on October 1.
“On Thursday morning they came and stole 18 cables, each one 4m in length,” said Ward 99 councillor, Nicole van Dyk.
“City Power replaced nine of those cables on one transformer but there was an oil leak at the other transformer, so we had to wait for Eskom to sort it out before replacing those cables.”
Van Dyk had been sending her residents regular updates during the outage.
She said the affected suburbs included Windsor West, Windsor East, Robindale, Robin Hills, Cresta, Darrenwood and Linden Extension.
At the end of it all, she said she was satisfied with City Power’s response but complained that Eskom took much longer than needed to resolve the problem.
“City Power arrived with parts to go, but Eskom didn’t. They also will not secure the substation any more than it is, so residents may have to step in to add some security.”
City Power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena said the turnaround time for stolen cables can be anything from an hour to seven days.
“It depends on the work involved, the severity of the theft, how deep or hard the surface where the cables need to be laid is, availability of material to replace the stolen cables.
“It also depends on the damage to the associated infrastructure like the transformers, mini-substations… attached to the stolen cable. Incidents are never the same.”
Eskom spokesperson, Tumi Mashishi said the utility also has no specific turnaround time to replace stolen cables.
“The replacement of the stolen cable is dependent on the extent of the damages, the condition of the surface (sometimes the cable is under a concrete surface) and the scope of work,” she said.
She said copper theft costs the South African economy between R5 and R7 billion a year and Eskom spends roughly R2 billion replacing stolen cables each year.
“There is an increase in illegal electricity-related activities especially cable theft in Gauteng. Eskom continues to heighten security in hot spot areas across Gauteng as cable theft may lead to prolonged power outages and compromises the quality of supply, which affects businesses, essential services as well as the day-to-day lives of society. Cable theft affects Eskom’s ability to deliver on its service delivery mandate.”
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