City Power recently released a statement notifying its customers of planned maintenance which was originally scheduled for Saturday, February 5 and Saturday, February 19.
However, the maintenance which was scheduled at the Eikenhof substation for February 5 was cancelled due to the late concerns raised by Rand Water and Joburg Water at a meeting with City Power.
“Joburg Water requested a grace period of two weeks, expressing concerns that the shutdown during the maintenance threaten their reservoirs which are currently running low with no reserves. Joburg Water indicated that the outage will negatively affect its customers that include hospitals,” City Power spokesperson, Isaac Mangena said in the statement.
“City Power supplies Rand Water with electricity to run its pump station in Eikenhof, south of Johannesburg. The pump station supplies water to several municipalities including Mogale City, Joburg, and parts of Madibeng in the North West, and Ekurhuleni.”
Apart from Rand Water, other City Power customers who were going to be affected include residents of Meredale, Kibler Park and Naturena, among others.
The planned maintenance at Eikenhof substation was scheduled for two days, two weeks apart – one on February 5, and the other on February 19.
“We have therefore decided to postpone this [past] weekend’s planned maintenance to give the water utilities enough time to address their reserve challenges. We will, however, continue with the planned maintenance for February 19,” he said.
“The second date for the maintenance will be decided after engaging Joburg Water and Rand Water to ensure we minimise the impact on customers.
“We want to emphasise as City Power that routine maintenance of our infrastructure is important to ensure the network performs efficiently at its optimal, and to avoid total breakdown of the substation. We apologise for the inconvenience caused by this,” Mangena concluded.
