City Power is carrying out planned maintenance across parts of Johannesburg this week, with several suburbs facing outages of up to eight hours.
Johannesburg residents in several areas are set to spend hours without electricity this week as City Power carries out planned maintenance on parts of the city’s electricity network.
The scheduled interruptions affect areas in Randburg, Midrand, Hursthill and Lenasia between 17 and 21 August, with some outages lasting for up to eight hours.
The work forms part of City Power’s ongoing maintenance programme, which the utility says is intended to strengthen the network, address ageing equipment and reduce the risk of unexpected failures.
Power outages, where?
Here is the list of areas affected, regions highlighted in bold for easy skimming:
Wednesday is clear, Thursday isn’t:
- On Thursday, 20 August, the Greenstone Hill Switching Station in Midrand will be offline from 9am to 5pm.
- Residents and businesses in Stone Close, Hereford Road, Stoneridge Drive and Emerald Boulevard are expected to be affected.
Friday brings two separate planned interruptions:
- The Mayfair Substation, under the Hursthill service delivery centre, is scheduled to be offline from 9am to 5pm
- This will affect Mayfair North, Amalgam Standby, Crown, Frederick Park and Amalgam.
- In Lenasia, the Goldev Switching Station will be offline from 8am to 4pm
- affecting Neptune Road, Process Road, Galaxy Avenue, Mpumelelo Street, Telescope Road and Freedom Park/Siyaya.
City Power’s explanation hasn’t changed much
City Power says the maintenance is necessary to service ageing infrastructure, replace faulty equipment and reduce the risk of unplanned outages.
The utility has also linked the work to increased pressure on the network during colder weather.
But if that explanation sounds familiar, there’s a reason. It isn’t a new statement specifically issued for this week’s outages.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena has used essentially the same wording in multiple outage announcements over the past few months.
So while the maintenance schedule changes from week to week, the explanation is effectively City Power boilerplate for planned maintenance, rather than a fresh comment about the specific outages this week.
Warning:
City Power has urged customers in affected areas to treat all electrical supply points as live throughout the interruption. That is because power could be restored earlier than the scheduled end of the maintenance period.
Residents are also advised to unplug electrical appliances while the power is off to reduce the risk of damage when supply returns.
The utility’s advice is particularly relevant for appliances and electronics that could be damaged by fluctuations when electricity is restored.
The scheduled maintenance is temporary. The inconvenience, unfortunately, is rather less theoretical if you’re sitting in one of the affected suburbs with a dead Wi-Fi router.
