Metro explains cause of power outages
Residents in Boksburg experienced multiple power outages, mainly in Freeway Park and Sunward Park, just before the start of the festive season.
“In general, there have been quite a few theft incidents in the previous year affecting the two areas when the feeder cables between Parkrand sub and sub 80 were stolen,” says metro spokesperson Themba Gadebe.
Gadebe explains that there was also a faulty cable in Freeway Park between K307 and K308 that caused outages in the Freeway Park area only.
He adds that the cable between K307 and K308 has been replaced.
“The outages were caused by the catastrophic failure of a 33kV circuit breaker at the Les Smith Substation, causing an outage affecting Boksburg South of the railway line. Repairs are continuing,” he explains.
He adds that the short-term plan to limit the time frame of outages in the area is to re-configure the protection scheme supervising the cables, in order to minimise any further damage to the cables in the event of one cable faulting.
He says that this has already been done.
“The next step is to source funding in order to replace at least 3.6km of the 9 km of cable. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused and thank the residents of Sunward Park and Freeway Park for their patience during this difficult time.”
The municipality is stating the problem was corrected in 12/2013.
Why are we having outages again in 2014?
I personally think nothing is being maintained!
Where was Themba during the outages ? What irked me even more than the power failures was the absence of communication. Sourcing funding is too late, the horse has bolted I’m afraid. You were caught out by your inaction to maintain basic infrastructure, and this will continue and get worse, I say this ‘cos it is exactly what has happened since 1996 when I moved into Sunward.