According to businesstech.co.za, a fire at the Watloo Substation on 29 September caused power interruptions across Pretoria and a week later about 9,000 residents are still without electricity.
The City of Tshwane confirmed that technicians are working around the clock on the Murrayfield and Koedoespoort supply areas. In Koedoespoort, 47 medium-voltage units were affected; 20 were temporarily restored but the network tripped again while the remaining units were being re-connected. In Murrayfield, 30 medium-voltage units were offline, five have been restored and work on a main feeder cable could bring another 13 units back online once testing is complete, city spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said.
A substation is a facility where high-voltage electricity is stepped down to lower voltages for distribution. Medium-voltage units are the local distribution points that feed neighbourhoods. “Switching teams” are crews that physically reconnect lines after faults are fixed, and “cable theft” refers to the illegal removal of copper or steel cables, a problem that can create additional faults and delay repairs.
Democratic Alliance Tshwane mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink warned that about 6,000 homes in Murrayfield, La Montagne, Silverton and other parts of Ward 41 remain without power. He said all cable faults linked to the Njala outage have been repaired, but a shortage of switching teams and system operators is slowing the final restoration. Brink urged the City Manager to deploy extra crews and qualified contractors to speed up the process.
The outage adds to South Africa’s broader electricity reliability challenges, where ageing infrastructure and frequent load-shedding events already strain households and small businesses. Prolonged blackouts can disrupt home-based enterprises, affect refrigeration for perishable goods and increase operating costs for retailers that rely on electricity.
Residents have been asked to stay clear of all electrical infrastructure, treat power lines as live and keep appliances unplugged until the supply is safely restored, Mashigo reiterated. The city says it will provide further updates as repairs continue.
For more coverage of power reliability issues see our Energy & Infrastructure section.
The explosion at Watloo Substation on 29 September triggered an emergency response, with fire crews battling the blaze while the City of Tshwane coordinated assessments of damage to primary supply stations, including those serving the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, according to city spokesperson Lindela Mashigo.
In the Koedoespoort area, teams are tracing further faults after a break in a cable forced a network re-trip; the effort has involved East Lynne and Jan Niemand Park, where 47 medium-voltage units remain offline, and technicians are working to locate the exact point of failure before any reconnection can proceed.
Repairs to a main feeder cable in Murrayfield are progressing, and successful testing could see up to 13 of the 30 affected medium-voltage units restored, provided no additional faults emerge during the verification stage, Mashigo explained.
Around 3,000 residents in East Lynne and Jan Niemandpark are still without power as crews address a fourth cable fault, a situation compounded by recent cable theft that has added further setbacks to the restoration timetable.
The city has repeatedly apologised for the prolonged interruption, stressing that allowing switching teams and system operators to work safely and without interference is essential; a shortage of these crews, combined with the need to manage the switching process carefully to avoid overloading the supply, is slowing progress, said Mashigo.
After technicians assess damage and repair broken cables, the next step involves switching teams reconnecting the lines; each reconnection is followed by testing to confirm stability before the power is safely switched back on, a sequence that determines when affected households will finally regain electricity.
The explosion at Watloo Substation on 29 September also knocked out supply to several primary stations, among them the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, prompting emergency services to battle the blaze while city crews assessed damage, Lindela Mashigo said. The fire’s ripple effect meant that both the Murrayfield and Koedoespoort substations inherited multiple cable faults, a situation the City of Tshwane described as “taking longer to locate and repair”. Residents were reminded again to treat all lines as live and keep appliances unplugged until power could be safely restored, a warning reiterated by the spokesperson.
In the Koedoespoort supply zone, technicians temporarily revived power to 20 of the 47 medium-voltage units on Monday, but the network re-tripped as crews attempted to reconnect the remaining 27, according to Mashigo. The city’s teams are now tracing further faults to pinpoint the exact break points in the cables, a step deemed essential before any reconnection can proceed safely. This detailed fault-search follows the earlier observation that “breaks in the cables are taking longer to locate and repair”, highlighting the complexity of the restoration effort.
After damage assessment and cable repairs, the next phase involves the switching teams physically re-joining the lines, after which each reconnection undergoes a testing cycle to verify voltage stability and load balance before the supply is officially switched back on. The testing stage confirms that no additional faults have emerged and that the network can handle the restored load without overloading, a process that determines the timing of power return for each household. Successful verification of the main feeder cable in Murrayfield could therefore unlock electricity for up to 13 of the 30 affected units.
The city has flagged a shortage of switching teams and system operators as a key bottleneck, with DA mayoral candidate Cilliers Brink urging the City Manager to bring in qualified contractors to boost capacity. Brink also noted that many households outside the major fault zones are awaiting attention for smaller outages, underscoring the broader pressure on limited resources. Allowing crews to work safely and without interference remains a priority, as the city seeks to accelerate repairs while avoiding any overload of the supply network.
