A fire at a substation in Eikenhof on August 27, 2018 which led to a power outage in parts of Johannesburg. Image: Twitter/@Rand_Water
City Power confirmed on Wednesday that it had fully restored power to the suburbs cut off after the fire at its Eikenhof substation on Monday.
Tests on the two transformers supplying electricity to residents and Rand Water were completed last night and were now fully loaded with capacity to provide 100% electricity supply to all the suburbs affected by fire, said Lerato Setshedi‚ City Power CEO.
“The damage to the infrastructure was so severe that it would have taken nothing less than at least 72 hours to fix and restore power to the residents. But the dedication and hard work of the women and men engineers and technicians who worked tirelessly around the clock‚ ensured that 32 hours later power was restored. We thank them for putting everything into to this operation to ensure our customers get electricity as soon as possible‚” said Setshedi.
City Power said it would continue bringing back two other transformers to ensure backup supply to the substation.
Setshedi said City Power would reconnect overhead lines severely damaged during the fire today‚ and bring back another new transformer to replace the one razed to the ground. This would not interrupt power supply to consumers‚ businesses or Rand Water.
It would take a little while for water reservoirs to fill up to ensure full supply of water to the residents affected, he said. This was because the reservoirs were completely empty and needed to fill up first and pack up pressure.
City Power investigators were finalising their probe into the cause of the fire‚ and the costs of the repairs‚ said Setshedi. This would form part of the technical report to help apply proper remedial measures to prevent a recurrence.
Setshedi expressed his sincere appreciation to the residents for their patience and understanding during this crisis‚ and apologised for any inconvenience caused during the repairs.
