City Power has restored power distribution to at least five suburbs following a fire at the Robertsham substation on Monday evening.

At least 16 areas predominantly in the south of the city were left without power as a result – with City Power reporting extensive damage caused to infrastructure, including the two main transformers at the substation.

“By the end of [Tuesday] we had managed to back feed six distributors to restore electricity to Chrisville, Crown Gardens, Robertsham, West Turfontein and parts of Ormonde,” the power utility said.

Back feeding occurs when electricity is fed into the grid in the opposite direction from where it usually flows.

City Power said that it had also managed to “bring back two spare transformers” that were not damaged by the fire.

However, at least ten other areas remained without electricity as of Wednesday morning.

“We couldn’t back feed all of the customers from the available substations around due to the overloading that was going to trip the other substation,” City Power said.

The power utility is now in the process of testing two substations which could facilitate the complete restoration of power.

“We are finalising the tests on the protection between Robertsham and Fordsburg substations, where the damaged substation is fed from. If all goes well, they will bring the much needed capacity to start restoring to all outstanding customers,” the entity said.

The cause of the blaze is still being investigated.

Source: South African Government News Agency