City Power traces outage in Mayibuye and Rabie Ridge to faulty transformers
Rabie Ridge and Mayibuye residents are still without electricity as City Power races to repair a key transformer fault.
Rabie Ridge and Mayibuye residents have been left frustrated, as City Power works to resolve what has now been confirmed as a fault on the current transformers (CTs).
The utility is in the process of sourcing the specialised materials required to complete repairs, but no estimated time of restoration (ETR) has been confirmed. The prolonged outage continues to affect households in Mayibuye and Rabie Ridge extensions 1, 2, and 5.
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City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena provided a detailed breakdown of the events that triggered the extended blackout. He said the situation began on November 17, when the Allandale substation tripped, due to a faulty breaker. “Our team, together with a service provider, assessed the faulty breaker and managed to restore supply to Mayibuye and Rabie Ridge Ext 5.
“However, Rabie Ridge extensions 1 and 2 remained off, due to double faults on the circuit.”
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Heavy rain later hampered fault detection, forcing the test branch team to hand the work over to the next shift.
On November 18, technicians managed to identify the faults, and contractors were immediately deployed to begin repairs. Mangena said they had hoped to restore full supply by 20:00 that night, but moisture intrusion caused the cables to fail again during testing.
The situation worsened on November 19 when, while teams were still on-site, smoke was detected at the substation. “Shortly thereafter, transformer number three tripped on the Eskom side, resulting in a loss of supply to customers in Mayibuye and Rabie Ridge extensions 1, 2, and 5.”
Eskom was called in to perform tests, and all results were confirmed clear on their end. Further investigations by City Power then pointed to the CTs as the source of the persistent outage.
Mangena said the utility is working urgently to secure the required materials so that repairs can proceed.
City Power apologised for the inconvenience caused and assured residents that updates will be issued as soon as new information becomes available.
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