The City of Cape Town’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Councillor Beverley Van Reenen, yesterday, 17 January 2022, visited the cable bridge across the Swart River in Paarden Eiland to assess the infrastructure damage, which led to a prolonged electricity outage in the CBD and Atlantic Seaboard areas last month. Repair work on site, which will take an estimated four to eight weeks, will begin in due course depending on regulatory approvals and the availability of spares.

On 20 December 2021, a fire on the underside of a bridge structure caused severe damage and subsequent failure of the 132kV High Voltage (HV) cables from the City’s Montagu Gardens Switching Station to Foreshore Switching Station and Eskom’s Tafelbaai High Voltage Substation to the City’s Foreshore Switching Station. All supply was restored to the affected areas on 21 December 2021. The network is currently operating within its design parameters.

‘The site work to replace the damaged equipment with new cables will commence shortly and is estimated that the repairs will take between four to eight weeks, depending on regulatory approvals and the availability of spares. Measures are being put in place to ensure the repair work will be completed in such a way that will avoid a potential, similar outage in future. In addition, the cable routes of those circuits now feeding the CBD will be closely monitored and patrolled on a daily basis to mitigate risk.

‘Unfortunately, vandalism of electricity infrastructure is outside of the City‘s control and remains a challenge. We appeal to residents to assist us by reporting any suspicious activities near electricity infrastructure to both the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the City so that we can bring an end to infrastructure vandalism.

‘Thank you to the Eskom and City teams which worked non-stop to restore electricity to the area and we thank our residents for their patience and understanding during the outage,’ said Councillor Van Reenen.

Source: City Of Cape Town