City Power has restored power to more areas hit by power outages due to the underground fire incident on the M1 highway last week.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the entity restored power supply to areas in Parktown West just after midnight.
The Parktown West areas restored include Empire Road, Yale Road, Service Road, Napier Street, Wabord Road, Workman’s rehab centre, and John Orr Technical.
Mangena said the power was restored due to the city’s efforts to lay several interconnector cables between the Fort substation and the Braamfontein substation.
Power supply restored
“As promised, City Power has successfully managed to restore power supply to more residents affected by the M1 tunnel fire incident,” said Mangena.
“This phase of restoration, which was targeted at customers in the Parktown West area, follows the tireless efforts by the teams that worked day and night in the past few days to find alternative solutions to reinstate power supply to some residents while the M1 tunnel repairs continue.
“After laying several interconnector cables between Fort substation and Braamfontein substation and successfully completing the tests, the following areas in Parktown West were finally restored just after midnight: Empire Road, Yale Road, Service Road, Napier Street, Wabord Road, Workman’s rehab centre, and John Orr Technical.”
He said residents in areas still without power “must bear with the team as more work is still under way parallel to the M1 bridge repairs, which are expected to take a bit longer to complete”.
City Power hopes to restore power to more suburbs, including the rest of Braamfontein, on Thursday.
Damage to cost R23m
He explained: “We are hoping to restore more suburbs, including the rest of Braamfontein, today [Thursday], if all goes according to plan.
“The vandalism and theft that happened last week on Wednesday triggered widespread outages that affected customers in Braamfontein, Newtown, Parktown, the Johannesburg CBD, and surrounding areas.
“The team has already managed to restore power to buildings such as Braampark, Liberty Life, Thuso House, Metro Centre, and others.
“With more customers diverted to the Fort substation, there is a risk of overloading that substation.
“As such, customers are encouraged to use power sparingly and unplug non-essential appliances such as geysers, pool pumps, and stoves.
“Failure to do so may force us to embark on load rotation for the duration of the repairs at the M1 bridge.”
Copper cables cut and stolen
The underground fire broke out on the M1 north highway near Smit Street and the double-decker section on Wednesday last week.
An investigation has revealed that 300 metres of copper cables have been cut and stolen.
City Power’s group executive for service delivery centres, Charles Tlouane, said it is going to cost R23-million to replace burned underground cables on the M1 highway and install new interconnector cables between Fort and Braamfontein substations.
