Tshwane works round clock to repair substation hit by lightning
The fire that gutted the temporary substation in the morning of September 20 has resulted in the Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Plant and surrounding areas having no power.
The Tshwane metro says it has made great efforts to repair electrical components damaged during a storm that left Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) without power on September 19, .
Metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba said Tshwane technicians responded to the unfortunate scene at Pyramid substation, reportedly struck by lightning that caused a fire and leaving various areas without electricity, including the water treatment plant.
He said Tshwane was yet to quantify the cost and find the actual cause, as technicians were still investigating and assessing the full scale of the damage.
“Following the fire that gutted the temporary Pyramid substation in the early hours of Wednesday morning, resulting in an outage affecting the WWTP and surrounding areas. The energy and electricity and regional operations departments have sourced the required materials and are working on plans to improvise power supply to the WWTP through feeding directly from another substation.
Once power has been restored to the plant, teams will then begin to channel all efforts towards energising the farming communities that have also been affected by the outage.”
Bad weather experienced on September 19 is suspected to have resulted in the temporary substation north of Pretoria next to the Rooiwal power station bursting into flames.
Bokaba said the fire left a transformer, including the container, in ashes.
He said the fire had spread into the high-tension yard, however, Tshwane emergency services responded swiftly and extinguished it before too much damage.
Boakaba added the storm had caused massive destruction to households in Hammanskraal and surrounding areas.
Tshwane emergency services spokesperson Deputy Chief Charles Mabaso said firefighters were dispatched to the scene at 22:00 and the fire was subsequently put out.
The 132/11kV Pyramid substation feeds Rooiwal, Ondersterpoort, Grootvlei West and East, Vastfontein and surrounds and last May, Tshwane invested R25 million in its refurbishment.
#TshwaneBudget2023: R191 million to be invested for refurbish the Mooikloof 132 kV/11 kV Substation, refurbish the Pyramid 132 kV/11 kV Substation, refurbish Rosslyn Substation.
— City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) May 24, 2023
The work includes constructing new control and switchgear buildings to house the replacement equipment destroyed by a fire in October 2019, and installing 109 cables for the new 11kV to 49 switchgear panels.
The refurbishment was expected to be completed during the 2024/25 financial year, depending on funding.
Work has begun at the Pyramid and Kentron Substations where we expect to complete both projects during the 2024/25 financial year. In Region 5, the City has also submitted an application to Eskom for the planned new Refilwe Substation.#TshwaneSoCA2023#MayorBrink
— City of Tshwane (@CityTshwane) May 18, 2023
The refurbishment was meant to mitigate health concerns, economic losses and security risks of outages to residents.
ActionSA said these health concerns included that the sewer plant could not process chemicals and the sewage pumped into the Apies River caused an awful smell downstream and a drastic drop in local property values.
@Action4SA candidate working with our Councillors to table a motion to expedite the refurbishment of Pyramid Substation. https://t.co/27TG7U6lAG pic.twitter.com/rjzYm9QE92
— Michael Beaumont (@ME_Beaumont) April 26, 2022
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