Eskom intervenes at Bryanston North Substation

Electricity stability and reliability may improve for the households and businesses fed from Bryanston North Substation, also known as BryNorth, as Eskom carries out much-needed maintenance.

A team from the national electricity public utility carried out maintenance and repairs to the Eskom/City Power-shared substation on Sloane Street in Bryanston during the first week of November.

According to a written response by the Eskom Media Desk, repairs were carried out following a spate of vandalism at the substation.

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“This [will provide] an additional source of supply to the city of Johannesburg for the 6.6KV side at any given time and it will improve electricity supply stability,” read the response.

Ward 102 councillor David Potter said the repairs would go a long way in assisting residents who were constantly being hit with extended blackouts. “Now that Eskom has returned full supply via their transformers, City Power needs to conduct urgent repairs on their side, which will then also allow Eskom to take an overburdened transformer offline for urgent maintenance.”

The substation had been damaged in an explosion on December 2019 and with the substation engulfed in flames, residents in the surrounding areas were left without electricity for extended periods of time and critically important equipment was left in a pile of ash.

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Since then, various City Power and City of Johannesburg officials have conducted oversight visits promising that interventions would take place. The most recent visit was that of MMC of Environment and Infrastructure Services Michael Sun.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said while maintenance had consistently been carried out on the two feeder boards since the incident, the damaged equipment had to be replaced.

“It is in the next financial plan, however, the supply to the area is restored through Ring Main Units as a temporary measure,” said Mangena.

Potter concluded, “As an active ward councillor in Bryanston, I give great thanks to the entire Eskom team for getting the transformers back online. We now wait for City Power to arrive.”

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