Explosion at Joburg substation could lead to another week of electricity woes
It's been six days since a fire at a substation in Eldorado Park left large sections of Johannesburg without power. And, to make matters worse, an explosion at the same substation could lead to another seven days of work before the electricity is fully restored.
The fire, which initially started at around 05:00 on Friday, caused widespread power outages and water cuts in Johannesburg. City Power had hoped to restore the electricity on Wednesday, but the explosion could have derailed that plan.
On Wednesday, City Power said that the first of two transformers had been switched on at around 15:00 but had tripped. This caused the second transformer to blow up.
It caused outages in Freedom Park, Mpumelelo and parts of Devland.
City Power estimated that it would take seven days to "resolve the problem". The repairs will include siphoning around 40 000 litres of oil out of the damaged transformer, before installing a new transformer.
"If all goes according to plan, we anticipate that we will switch on by early next week," City Power said in a statement.
The city had been plagued by power outages in recent weeks. News24 previously reported that nearly 2 000 power outages occurred in Johannesburg last week.
According to City of Johannesburg acting MMC for environment and infrastructure services Leah Knott, most of these were the result of inclement weather, increased demand, ageing infrastructure and load shedding.
The fire on Friday saw several substations upstream trip, including Orlando, Fordsburg, Pennyville, Mayfair, Mondeor, Nirvana, Nancefield, and Eikenhof. Many of the substations have since been repaired but not those in Nancefield and Nirvana.
In addition, according to Johannesburg Water, the outages affected water supply to Roodepoort, Lenasia and Soweto, News24 previously reported.
Comments
Research Reports
Projects
Latest Multimedia
Latest News
Showroom
Rittal is a world leading provider of top-quality integrated systems for enclosures, power distribution, climate control, IT infrastructure and...
VISIT SHOWROOM
ESAB South Arica, the leading supplier of high-end welding and cutting products to the Southern African industrial market is based in...
VISIT SHOWROOM
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation
