The City of Tshwane has suffered major electricity outages over the past few days due to a combination of the recent cold front, load-shedding, illegal connections and increased incidences of theft and vandalism. Certain areas in the western regions of Tshwane are experiencing low-voltage situations due to system overloads, especially Atteridgeville, Hermanstad, Daspoort and Pretoria Gardens.
The extreme cold weather experienced across the country these past few days have caused major trips across the City’s electricity network. In certain areas of Pretoria East, Olievenhoutbosch, Laudium and Mamelodi, some outages have lasted for two days or longer. Among others, the Wapadrand, Mooikloof, Olievenhoutbosch and Laudium Substations are all affected, and technicians are working around the clock to ensure stable electricity supply.
During the past months of Eskom load-shedding, the City’s electricity network has suffered severe damage, as copper thieves exploited the load-shedding schedule to target specific substations and their surrounds to steal cables and other equipment. As a result, the City is suffering major financial losses to replace all stolen and damaged cables and equipment, and consumers experience unstable power supply.
Just last night, thieves targeted Njala Infeed Station and made off with a substantial amount of cable and caused significant damage to equipment. The affected areas are Mamelodi, parts of Waltloo and Silverton, as well as Pretoria East.
Technicians are currently on-site and the initial prognosis is that repairs may take a few days. It must also be noted that teams will first direct their efforts to restoring Njala before returning to continue repairs at Wapadrand, Mooikloof and Mamelodi 1, 2 and 3.
The overload on the network is exacerbated by illegal connections downstream from substations, resulting in low-voltage supply, such as in the west of the city, or total outages in certain areas of Mamelodi and Soshanguve. While the City (accompanied by the South African Police Service) regularly conducts removal operations, the extent and scope of illegal connections are simply too great to address effectively.
While the City’s repair teams are working around the clock to restore power to areas as fast as possible, the City calls on all residents to reduce their electricity usage to reduce the load demand on our infrastructure.