City Power hopes to restore power by the end of Wednesday

City Power teams worked for a second night in a row to ensure power is restored to all residents affected by the Robertsham substation fire which happened on Monday night, October 18.

“By end of yesterday, we had managed to back-feed six distributors to restore electricity to Chrisville, Crown Gardens, Robertsham, West Turfontein, and parts of Ormonde,” said City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena.

Suburbs that are still outstanding include Booysens, Ridgeway, Winchester Hills, Nasrec, Southdale, Ophirton, Glenada, Aeroton, Evans Park, Gillview, among others.

WATCH: Joburg South residents to spend another night without power

“We couldn’t back-feed all the customers from the available substations around due to the overloading that was gonna trip the other substation.”

The rain also delayed some progress on the repairs. Mangena added that by last night the team managed to bring back the two spare transformers that survived the fire, and they both passed the tests.

“We are this morning finalizing the tests on the protection between Robertsham and Fordsburg substation, where the damaged substation is fed from.”

If all goes well they will bring the much-needed capacity to start restoring all outstanding customers.

City Power is hoping to have an all-clear by later today after which power will be restored to all – if everything goes according to plan.

WATCH: Joburg South residents without power after Robertsham substation fire