Cape Town - Residents in and around large parts of the Cape Town CBD and surrounds lost power on Saturday – not due to load shedding, but due to two high voltage power lines that tripped at the Tafelbaai substation.
Areas affected included the CBD, the Atlantic seaboard, Observatory, Paarden Eiland and down the West Coast to Milnerton.
This was the second instance of a mass power outage resulting from an electrical fault and infrastructure damage in fewer than four months.
In December, similar areas were affected by a blackout, but Eskom said these two incidents were unrelated as the first outrage was due to cable theft and vandalism of infrastructure.
Eskom said the City’s customers were affected, even though the Tafelbaai substation was an Eskom substation – their line was back in service by 10.30 pm on Saturday.
“The initial reaction of residents was that of confusion. After 4pm on Saturday, the reports logged for power outages well exceeded 600. Fortunately, the issue was communicated quickly,” District Six councillor, Yusuf Mohamed, said.
Mayco member for Energy Beverley van Reenen said investigations were still under way to look into the outage holistically, but initial indications were that two Eskom high voltage power lines had tripped, which affected Eskom and City customers.
“City teams started the process of taking Eskom’s power load on to the City network. The network had to be made safe and risk reduced.
“The City had to ensure the system was not overloaded to avoid further outages and damage, and circuits had to be switched on one at a time in this wide area, starting from Montague Gardens to Roggebaai,” Van Reenen said.
City leadership would again touch base with Eskom this week to discuss risk, and how Eskom would mitigate the risk going forward.
Nicola Jowell, councillor for areas in the Atlantic seaboard, said it was very worrying that this was the second time that there was a major fault that affected so many people, and in a similar location.
Asked if electricity cables were being serviced accordingly, and if more of these outages should be expected, Eskom said it maintained its network infrastructure.