Explosion at substation
Another planned power interruption will effect the entire Middelburg area following an explosion at the Gholfsig substation early on Monday morning that destroyed a voltage transformer.
Spokesperson Juanita Vogel said in a media statement that “Eskom will inform customers of the date and time when the power will be interrupted in order to replace the voltage transformer. This outage will not take place today, but later in the week. This date will be negotiated with the Steve Tshwete Municipality”.
The explosion occurred just 12 hours after scheduled maintenance resulted in a complete blackout between 07:00 and 17:00 on Sunday.
Consumers were cut off again – this time due to an unplanned interruption at about 04:30.
At about 09:00 on Monday morning Eskom confirmed that the Middelburg team managed to restore power supply to parts of Middelburg town and Mhluzi.
“Technicians are still on site in an effort to extinguish the fire and restore the substation to a safe condition. The cause of the explosion is being investigated and the voltage transformer will have to be replaced. Once the fire is fully extinguished, preparations will be made for the replacement,” Vogel stated.
An eyewitness, who asked not to be named, said that he saw technicians running away from the site just minutes before the explosion took place – which was heard by residents in Gholfsig and Clubville.
“The objective of the planned maintenance on Sunday 30 March was preventative in minimising power interruptions during the coming winter months. The explosion of the transformer is not related to the outage of the previous day. Eskom apologises to all effected customers. We will provide further information once we are in a position to do so.”
She added that Eskom urges all citizens to report any suspicious activity on the electricity networks to the Eskom Crime Line by sending a detailed SMS to 32211 (R1/SMS).
