Second day without electricity for Joburg residents after Roodepoort substation explodes

-- An explosion at a substation has caused power outages in Roodepoort. -- Some parts of Roodepoort have been without power since Sunday morning. -- Power has been restored to around 40% of customers, with the rest likely to be restored by Tuesday. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some residents of Roodepoort in Gauteng are entering their second day without electricity after an explosion at a substation.

The explosion occurred early on Sunday morning at the Peter Road substation, resulting in "substantial damages", City Power said in a statement.

Cable theft may have caused the explosion.

Repairs got under way on Sunday, and by Monday morning, the electricity of around 40% of the customers serviced by the power station was restored.

City Power cautioned that the remaining 60% without power could wait until late on Monday night.

"The teams worked overnight to push for the finalisation of the repairs at Peter Road substation, which suffered some damages during an explosion on Sunday morning," said City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena.

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Region C #RoodepoortOutages#PeterRdSub Update ?? ^DR pic.twitter.com/5eO8WYO4zh

-- @CityPowerJhb (@CityPowerJhb) March 13, 2023

City Power said the work done overnight included the installation of new protection cables. Testing the cables was expected to take place on Monday morning. However, repairs hit a snag early on Monday morning, Mangena said.

Describing the "little setback", City Power said one of the distributors that were restored overnight tripped at 02:00 due to a suspected fault. It was attending to the situation, City Power added.

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"We are on track to complete the repairs and restore most, if not all, of the customers by this evening (Monday)," Mangena said.

Some residents took to social media to vent about the lack of electricity on top of load shedding.

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@JHB_DA_Ward97 I just saw the loadshedding schedule for tomorrow for Roodepoort that will be disgusting if we have to endure that after basically not having electricity for 23 hours today, not like it matters right

-- Fuzydeathball (@FuzyDeathball) March 12, 2023

In January, City Power said it was out of stock and needed to replenish 14 mini substations vandalised in Johannesburg.

At the time, the power utility said it had replaced more than 390 vandalised mini substations in the last year. Roodepoort was the hardest hit, with eight incidents, followed by Reuven with four.

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According to Mangena, the utility loses an average of two mini substations a day due to theft and vandalism.

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