South Africa will contend with Stage 6 power cuts again on Wednesday – Image via: Adobe Stock
South Africa will contend with Stage 6 power cuts again on Wednesday – Image via: Adobe Stock
Residents in a wide range of areas in Johannesburg must have rushed to their load shedding schedules on Monday 29 March, with power to dozens of large suburbs cut without warning. This time, embattled power supplier Eskom is not the responsible culprit, but rather City Power, who are now battling to restore power to two major sub-stations.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said in a statement on Monday that faults had occurred at the Prospect and Sebenza sub-stations this afternoon, resulting in most of the major city being plunged into temporary darkness for several hours.
“City Power is currently experiencing unplanned power interruption at Prospect and Sebenza as a result of a fault that happened on a 275kv (kilovolts) feeder line,” he said.
“The Prospect and Sebenza line affects several major sub-stations in the north east, inner city and south of Johannesburg.”
Mangena said that technicians are hard at work to restore full power supply to the affected areas, and apologised for the inconvenience (and, in all likelihood, explosive fits of rage over yet another period of blackouts) caused.
The following areas were affected (warning, it’s an extensive list):
Mangena said it was not clear how long the restoration mission would take, and City Power said on Monday afternoon that the “whole of Kyalami and several other areas are set to undergo blackouts this evening as a result of “critical maintenance”.
“As the supply may be restored at any time, customers are urged to treat their electricity supply points as live at all times,” he added.