Power restored on Florin Road
City Power ensures residents that maintenance on aging infrastructure in the Roodepoort area is their top priority.
After the gloomy weather brought several hailstorms and non-stop rain, the residents of Florin Road can now safely live their daily lives with no power outages caused by their mini sub stations (MSS) catching fire or exploding.
On January 15, the MSS on Florin Road near the Riverview Shopping Center caught fire from heavy rain and thunderstorms in the evening and caused a massive power outage for surrounding residents. Several security companies and fire departments responded quickly, ensuring the fire did not spread further and cause more damage. City Power (CP) was on site the next morning on Thursday, January 16 to clean around the MSS, securing it for repairs.
• Also read: MSS on Florin Road replaced
According to CP’s general manager of public relations and communication Isaac Mangena, the City of Johannesburg (CoJ) is faced with aging infrastructure, with a significant portion of the network ranging from 60 to 100 years old, meaning much of their infrastructure is over five decades old.
“This is evident in older suburbs such as Roodepoort , Randburg, Hursthill, and Reuven. Roodepoort, in particular, has some of the oldest infrastructure as it was one of the first areas in the city to be electrified. As a result, the area still relies on outdated equipment, including old breakers, mini substations, transformers, and cables. This aging infrastructure is particularly vulnerable to frequent failures, including fires and trips, especially during the restoration of power, due to the current inrush that can damage network equipment.”
“One of the major challenges we are facing is the significant backlog in our infrastructure, which currently exceeds R40 billion. Unfortunately, our budget allocation is not sufficient to address this backlog, which includes both the replacement of old infrastructure and the development of new systems. We rely on the funding provided by the CoJ to tackle this issue, but it is often not sufficient,” Mangena explains.
Mangena further adds that in the last week CP has experienced significant challenges due to the weather conditions that have placed their systems under considerable strain, but they are working tirelessly to try and bridge the gap between the aging infrastructure in the Roodepoort area.
“The Florin Road MSS was fortunately delivered on Friday, January 17 and contractors started repairs immediately. Following an assessment, the team took a decision to replace it. After the mini-substation was installed, both the medium voltage (MV)and the low-voltage (LV) cables had to be connected before they could be restored. The power supply to affected customers was fully restored over the weekend,” Mangena said.
