Johannesburg residents who recently had their electricity restored after a week-long outage are back in the dark for the next 16 hours.
This comes as power utility City Power implements an emergency shutdown to complete repair work at the Mayfair Substation. The substation had two major explosions last weekend, attributed to cable theft and vandalism.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena says customers whose supply was restored yesterday, including the SABC, Sentech, Netcare Garden City Hospital and Mayfair West, will be without power from midday today.
“City Power will implement a 16-hour emergency shutdown from 12:00 noon today to allow technical teams to complete critical repairs at the Mayfair Substation and stabilise the electricity network following the prolonged outage.
“The emergency shutdown will affect customers who were restored during Phase 1 of the restoration process, including the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), Netcare Garden City Hospital and residential customers in Mayfair West. This shutdown is necessary to complete essential repairs, strengthen the network and reduce the risk of further interruptions in the long run,” Mangena adds.