Cape Town - A snapped supply cable at the Acacia substation, which caused a fire, left residents and businesses across the City Bowl and surrounding suburbs in darkness for more than 12 hours from Monday night.
Eskom operators, together with the City of Cape Town’s Electricity Generation and Distribution Department, as well as fire crews, worked throughout Monday night and Tuesday to restore power and repair the fault on the Acacia-Tafelbaai line.
“Upon inspection, additional faults were discovered which required further repairs. Eskom has been working tirelessly with the City of Cape Town to restore electricity supply,” said Eskom.
Power was eventually restored in Woodstock, Vredehoek, Gardens, Tamboerskloof, District Six, around Constitution Street, parts of the eastern CBD and down to Chiappini Street and parts of the Foreshore on Monday afternoon.
A while later, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis announced that power to all affected areas was restored on Monday at 4.30pm.
Hill-Lewis said: “The cause of the outage has been identified as major cable damage to City and Eskom feeders, in conjunction with the loss of a conductor on the Eskom overhead line. The cable damage resulted in major tripping of all cables feeding Area 7.”
Hill-Lewis said electricity supply to the area was being restored by returning to service cables that had tripped and cables that had been out for maintenance. Repairs to the damaged cables were expected to take up to five weeks.
This is the cable tunnel feeding the CBD which has been severely damaged due to the fire. Replacement of the cables will take place.
For the latest statement and ongoing efforts, see: https://t.co/cWyD6W8BSg#CTNews pic.twitter.com/dgxlb9dtku
The City’s Electricity Generation and Distribution Department has restored power to additional parts of Area 7. It is estimated that power will be restored to all impacted City-supplied areas today, 21 December 2021.
— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) December 21, 2021
Read more: https://t.co/4Dnau8LWyV#CTNews pic.twitter.com/IxDxvSo6Ke
On Monday evening, the mayor said most of the affected areas were brought back online and those that were not back online would be restored last night.
“The initial focus was on restoring supply to vulnerable areas first, including hospitals, clinics and medical storage facilities. Once we had secured these areas, our staff turned their attention to the rest of the affected areas and had many areas back online by midday,” said Hill-Lewis.
Where there were individual streets without power, Hill-Lewis requested that those be reported to the City as it meant a local fault caused by switching on the high-voltage supply.
“Our teams will come out to repair these individually, and are awaiting these reports,” said the mayor.
City Bowl councillor Francine Higham said the power outage was a major inconvenience for residents and businesses, especially as many people were preparing for the festive season and had stocked their fridges.
He said residents were understandably frustrated.
Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Jacques Moolman said trade in the affected areas had suffered. Business had responded to the power outage with a combination of exasperation and resignation, but with a firm resolution to keep trading at all costs, and with abject apologies to their customers.
“Many of our members are so used to these sudden failures they have taken precautions, in the form of Uninterrupted Power Supply inverters to secure their computers and other devices, if they can afford to install them. Some even have small generators. Others operate from a building that has auxiliary power units,” said Moolman.
As a result of the power outage, several overflows were recorded at pump station that pump sewage from properties to wastewater treatment works. Among these were Thibault in the CBD affecting the parking area, Jan Smuts Pump Station, Long Street, Beta Road in Bakoven and Clifton.
The City’s Water and Sanitation Directorate was investigating the extent of the impact the power outage had on more than 30 sewage pump stations servicing the Atlantic Seaboard and CBD area.
[Watch] Raphael Swinny who is the Manager of HV Circuits providing an update on the Area 7 power outage. Technicians have been working tirelessly around the clock to restore power in the affected areas attending to cables that were damaged by the fire.#CTNews pic.twitter.com/3DNVne1E96
— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) December 21, 2021