Overview
- City Power recorded almost 3,700 outage calls and thousands of active fault reports on Tuesday, 11 August, with the biggest volumes from Hursthill, Reuven and Lenasia.
- The utility says the surge is driven by higher winter demand and wet weather that stressed equipment and caused multiple substations to trip.
- City Power attributes about 60% of failures to deteriorating infrastructure and about 20% to theft and vandalism, while illegal connections and meter bypassing worsen loads on the network.
- Crews are working round the clock but restoration is slowed by unsafe conditions, ongoing new faults and security risks at sites, and residents are urged to reduce peak consumption to protect the grid.
- Longer term stability is constrained by finances and deferred work: audits show nearly R19 billion in recent electricity losses and City Power reports a roughly R44-billion infrastructure backlog despite a medium-term allocation of about R28.3 billion for operations and R6.7 billion for capital.