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The outages were, among others, caused when a “bus bar” at the Vorster Street substation overheated, causing a hot connection, which flashed over and destroyed the 11kV incomer panel. Photo: Makhado Municipality.

Residents can expect more power outages

 

The past week, residents of Louis Trichardt were plagued by numerous power outages.

On Monday, residents experienced two extended power outages, followed by another outage on Tuesday.

Municipal spokesperson Mr Louis Bobodi confirmed on Wednesday that the outages were, among others, caused when a “bus bar” at the Vorster Street substation overheated, causing a hot connection, which flashed over and destroyed the 11kV incomer panel.

Monday’s outages affected the entire town west of the N1 and had to be restored twice. As for Tuesday’s outage, Bobodi explained that they had to work on a faulty 11Kv switch in Extension 2 that leaked insulating oil, causing a trip. “We had to repair the switch and replace the oil to get the feeder ready to be used from the Roodewal substation,” said Bobodi.

Asked whether residents of Louis Trichardt could expect more such outages in the coming days, Bobodi said yes. “We are in the process of refurbishing the Stubbs Street sub and the rest of the town must be fed from all other available substations. In order to do so, all the cables and switches available to us must be operational. The urban network will be unstable until the Stubbs Street sub has been refurbished and put back into service. This will be at least a week’s job,” said Bobodi. He added that the work entailed replacing all the more-than-30-year-old switchgear with new high-tech switches, as no spares were available for the older switches anymore. “Therefore, the town will experience some outages in the next coming weeks. By feeding from other available substations, we shall try and limit the outages to a minimum to let all customers have power,” Bobodi said.

 

Date:19 October 2017

By: Andries van Zyl

Andries joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in April 1993 as a darkroom assistant. Within a couple of months he moved over to the production side of the newspaper and eventually doubled as a reporter. In 1995 he left the newspaper group and travelled overseas for a couple of months. In 1996, Andries rejoined the Zoutpansberger as a reporter. In August 2002, he was appointed as News Editor of the Zoutpansberger, a position he holds until today.

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