Metro blames load-shedding for transformer explosion in east of Pta
Tshwane MMC for utilities and regional operations and coordination Themba Fosi said Eskom’s load-shedding has a damaging impact on the city’s electricity infrastructure and this can lead to prolonged power outages.
Parts of Menlo Park in the east of Pretoria were without power since Tuesday after a transformer exploded at 4th Street.
According to Tshwane metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo, the current transformer of an outdoor substation (similar to a mini-sub) had exploded.
“The regional maintenance team was dispatched and they replaced the current transformer.”
Mashigo said the current outdoor transformer exploded because of load-shedding.
Residents must brace themselves for prolonged outages and electrical faults owing to Eskom’s stage 6 load-shedding.
The Tshwane MMC for utilities and regional operations and coordination, Themba Fosi, said load-shedding damaged the city’s electricity infrastructure and could lead to prolonged power outages.
“The raised levels of load-shedding are a crisis for our municipality, affecting both our electricity network as well as our ability to attend to outages,” Fosi warned.
Stage 6 load-shedding means that rolling blackouts will affect regions of Tshwane two to three times a day for a minimum of six hours per day.
“Our networks were never designed for load-shedding. Continuously turning the electricity network off and on has a major impact on the condition of our network infrastructure,” he said.
Residents can expect additional outages due to overloading the network as well as vandalism and theft of city infrastructure.
Fosi said another issue adding to prolonged outages was rain.
“The heavy rains we have been experiencing recently are also making this situation worse. With wet weather, the likelihood of equipment faults is increasing.”
He urged residents to turn off their appliances during load-shedding, leaving only a light on to alert them when the power returns.
“Residents can then only turn their appliances back on after some time has passed like 10 to 20 minutes.
“The surges generated as power is turned back on cause areas to trip only minutes after power has been restored, causing extended outages in some areas.
“Residents must ensure that energy-intensive appliances are off during peak times (particularly from 18:00 to 21:00), such as geysers, to assist in decreasing the load and preventing a bad situation from worsening.”
He said the City will work tirelessly to alleviate the electricity situation.
“We continue to pursue long-term interventions to see what the City can do to help in this continuous challenge,” Fosi said.
“This includes launching our energy task team who is looking at alternative electricity solutions including renewable energy and power from independent power producers.”
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