Upper Houghton Ratepayers and Residents Association hosted a meeting on February 12, which was attended by Observatory and Yeoville residents to address the continuous power disruption at the Observatory substation.
City Power’s inner city’s general manager, Arsenio Cossa, said on December 2, there were power disruptions which led to areas fed by the Observatory power station to be left in the dark.
“The power station experienced problems amid the transformers in Belleview and Observatory not working for years due to vandalism and cable theft.”
He added that the principle of engineering was that a power station supplies a household with power, there must be another alternative route for the constant supply of power. Hence, the standby transformers are there but have now been vandalised.
Cossa highlighted that when he was on-site last month, the Observatory substation was on fire which caused more problems. “The issues experienced stem from ageing infrastructure and the substations being over 60 years old. A temporary solution, which has been implemented to supply electricity, are cables which have been dug up underground for the affected areas to have power.”
The cables also posed problems because City Power had a large consumption which included Belleview, Yeoville. When the power was switched on from the control room, the current peaked and damaged joints and terminations which led to processes that included isolation, disconnection, fixing and testing to eventually switch on which takes more than 24 hours.
The general manager said it would take 12 months for the transformers to be repaired and the work began last year.
Chairman of the Upper Houghton Ratepayers and Residents Association (UHRRA) Roger Brescianino said he was impressed with the work City Power was doing on the ground in trying to keep the ageing infrastructure working.
“The challenge, however, is the constant load-shedding by Eskom, which has shaken the infrastructure to its bones and places immense strain on any repairs undertaken. The main issue is the 3km, 88KV cable feed from Observatory substation to Bellevue substation which needs replacing.”
Brescianino added that due to the replacement being the responsibility of a different section of City Power, the residents will still be in the dark as to ‘if’ and ‘when’ that would come to an end was a mystery.
He noted that in the interim, the City Power maintenance teams grappled with temporary feeds that are struggling to handle the loads, “The result is that in addition to load-shedding, the affected areas also have ‘load rotation’.”
Ward 67 councillor David Modupi concluded that he was glad City Power explained the intricacies of the uninterrupted power supply.
“I would like to add that City Power needs to be clearer in their communication and media releases because I always must explain what certain things mean to residents for them to have a clearer understanding of the electricity issue.”
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