Thousands still without power in Pretoria after substation ‘burnt to ashes’

Just as temperatures have been dropping in Gauteng‚ thousands of residents in parts of Pretoria East have been living without electricity for the past six days.

Daleen Du Plessis‚ who lives in Equestria in Pretoria‚ said her life has become arduous due to the prolonged outage‚ which occurred after an electrical fault destroyed the Wapadrand substation.

“It is very difficult. I had an eye operation and cataracts removed in both my eyes. At night I have to stand by candlelight to put in the drops. It’s difficult to do that.

“I had to buy dry ice‚ which cost me R235 for just four pieces‚ to keep the meat frozen. Then there are the usual difficulties: you can’t take a bath at your own place‚ so I have to go to my son-in-law’s place to take a bath.

“It costs me extra money‚ extra fuel‚ extra everything. It is all expensive. You have to buy batteries for torches and have to buy candles. It is quite a lot of extra money that we’ve spent.”

On top of the extra costs‚ she says life without electricity is dull. “There was no television‚ just nothing‚” said Du Plessis‚ adding that she has to charge electronic devices at other people’s homes and she no longer has access to the internet.

However‚ she acknowledged that the city was communicating well by giving residents regular updates on its efforts to restore power.

Darryl Moss‚ Tshwane MMC of utility services‚ said the city was doing its own investigation into what led to the power outage‚ while an insurance provider was running a separate investigation.

“What we do know is that there was a giant electrical fault. What caused that‚ we really are not sure at this stage. But it was so big that our protection system was not able to respond to it. It was at the top of the substation‚ where it is still medium voltage. This happened at the Wapadrand substation‚” he said.

“This affected the whole area around Wapadrand‚ Faerie Glen‚ Silver Lakes‚ Koedoeberg… It was a huge area. We’ve had thousands and thousands of residents offline for almost a week now.

“We had to rebuild the Wapadrand substation from scratch. It was burnt to ashes. We put the electric equipment outside the substation because the building is so badly damaged we could not use it. We put up a temporary shelter. That is complete.

“Yesterday [on Sunday] we energised a large part the affected area. About 60% to 70% of the people are back online. The balance should be restored today‚” said Moss.

He added that it still difficult to state with certainty what time all the affected areas would have electricity.

“Because we are working with 380,000 volts‚ we have to be very careful in making sure that everything is 100% correct before we switch anything on‚” he said.