The MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Nico De Jager, has apologised for the poor communication and the continuous power failures suffered by all areas to the east of the city and especially to the areas supplied from Sebenzasubstation.
This, after the Sandton Chronicle yesterday (28 June) reported that Joburg’s region E had been affected by widespread power outages.
“As you might be aware, the backlog in infrastructure maintenance in the city is enormous, and as I have indicated on a number of occasions it will probably only get worse before it gets better. Sebenza is one of those substations that is well overdue for an upgrade and as a result we have these outages,” said the MMC.
“In the meantime City Power commissioned a new transformer at the Sebenza substation earlier this week. In doing so, the substation [tripped] and reported a fault. City Power then investigated and found that a gasket had blown that will take a further three or four days to fix. As you can imagine that is not what any of us need so we have since entered into negotiations with Kelvin Power Station to increase their supply from 45MW to 150MW. This increased supply will be available [from] around 5pm today.”
The time of availability in itself poses a problem as it is also the time of high demand that might result in another trip, power will therefore be phased in to prevent further trips, he said.
“The issue of load-shedding and load-rotation is quite simple. Load-shedding is what Eskom introduce during times of high demand and low capacity and load-rotation is exactly the same but coming from City Power.
“City Power started introducing load-rotation in order to be certain that all areas directly impacted upon by the lack of capacity coming from Sebenza can get some level of service. The rotational shedding might change at the discretion of City Power based on certain indicators such as the levels of water reservoirs to prevent reservoirs run empty and residents being without water as well,” De Jager explained.
“City Power assured me that by early evening, power to the area would be fully restored through the increased capacity in supply from the Kelvin Power Station.
“I hope the above can shed some light on the challenges that City Power are experiencing as a result of historical under-performance in terms of repairs and maintenance over many years.”
28 June:
City Power is currently working on a technical fault at the Sebenza substation which has resulted in widespread power outages throughout Region E.
The suburbs affected are:
- Inanda,
- Melrose,
- Melrose Estate,
- Kent Park,
- Norwood,
- Houghton,
- Fairways,
- Waverley,
- Killarney,
- Wierda,
- Illovo,
- Oaklands,
- Melrose Arch,
- Killarney Mall,
- Chislehurston,
- Bramley,
- Atholl,
- Lombardy East,
- Alexandra,
- Kew,
- Bramley Gardens,
- Highlands North,
- Fairmount,
- Savoy,
- Bramley Park,
- Rembrandt Park,
- Glenhazel,
- Crystal Gardens,
- Wynberg,
- Lyndhurst,
- Sandringham,
- Sunningdale and surrounding areas.
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