City Power has restored most areas after Fordsburg fire
City Power has confirmed significant progress in restoring electricity following a fire at its Fordsburg substation in Johannesburg, with most affected areas now back on supply.
The incident began on Sunday, when smoke was detected coming from underground cable tunnels at the Fordsburg Substation.
The facility was isolated as a safety precaution, resulting in widespread outages across parts of the city.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the fire primarily affected high-voltage cables running underground.
“The teams worked around the clock overnight to ensure that we at least cut the inconvenience that this will have to the customers.”
Mangena said electricity was restored to most of the affected substations on Monday, including those in the south and in areas such as Nirvana and Eldorado Park.
“Power supply has since been restored to the majority of these substations and the affected areas, including parts of Kibler Park, Chrisville, Mayfield Park, Mondeor, Naturena, Eikenhof, Robertsham, Alveda Park, Ormonde, Comptonville, Meredale, Eldorado Park, New Eldorado Park, Nancefield, Nirvana, Soweto, Brixton East, Riverlea, Crosby, Langlaagte and surrounding areas,” he added.
One of the biggest concerns was the impact on Rand Water, whose pumping operations were interrupted by the power failure.
“Rand Water Board, which was obviously affected and not able to pump water, they were happy to say that they are also now back on load and they're able to pump or operate from their side,” Mangena said.
However, the Bree, Braamfontein and John Ware substations remain offline, leaving parts of the Johannesburg CBD, Newtown, Hillbrow, Parktown, Parktown West, Braamfontein, Mayfair and Bank City without electricity.
The outage is also affecting critical and major sites, including the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Junction Mall and Wits University's East Campus.
City Power added that the remaining substations suffered more extensive damage, and teams are still assessing the infrastructure and determining the safest and most effective way to restore supply.
Mangena reiterated that there is currently no exact restoration time for the remaining affected areas, although the utility is aiming for full restoration by the end of Monday.
“Those are still off because the impact actually had a huge disruption to those supplies, and as such, they will remain off until we have cleaned up and also made some repairs to the damaged cables.”
The initial outage affected a wider interconnected network supplied through the Reuven, Lenasia and Hursthill Service Delivery Centres, disrupting electricity to residential areas, businesses and critical services.
City Power promised to continue providing updates as restoration work progresses.
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