Pretoria - The City of Tshwane has finally completed the rebuilding of a temporary Pyramid substation near the Rooiwal power station after it was destroyed by fire as a result of lightning during a heavy storm on September 20.
The facility was among the damage caused by the storm, including the uprooting of trees, multiple shack fires at Kameeldrift informal settlement and widespread power supply interruptions.
A fire also broke at Garsfontein’s Summit restaurant, but the bottom part of the venue and the kitchen were not destroyed, and firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze on the second floor.
The Pyramid substation’s transformer was also burnt, leaving mostly farming communities who are customers supplied from the facility in the dark .
Municipal spokesperson Lindela Mashigo hailed the work done by a team of technicians in rebuilding the facility and restoring power to residents after 18 days.
“Following unprecedented severe storms of Wednesday, 20 September 2023, that swept through parts of the metropolitan municipality, the City of Tshwane is pleased to announce that the rebuilding of the Pyramid Substation, damaged by fire recently, has been completed, and power has been restored to all affected areas,”he said.
He said the substation was successfully rebuilt in just 18 days following an impressive feat of engineering and construction.
“The project, which involved demolishing the damaged structure such as panels, feeder cables, circuit breakers, 132 KV isolator and key transformer components, has been expertly completed within the projected schedule,” he said.
Mashigo said the engineering team worked around the clock to restore essential components of the power distribution system, leading to power being restored to the affected areas.
“During the outage, the affected households were constantly provided with regular updates on the progress of the restoration efforts. The City of Tshwane sincerely apologises for any frustration or inconvenience caused by the repairs,” he said.
Pretoria News