Ekurhuleni hopes power will be restored to Kempton Park on Sunday

Repairs are under way to faulty cables that have caused a power outage affecting most parts of Kempton Park, east of Johannesburg.

Since Friday, people in Nokem Park, Birchleigh, Glen Marais, Allen Grove, Aston Manor, Kempton Park Ext 4, parts of Pomona, Nimrod Park, Bonaero Park, Kempton Park West, Birch Acres, van Riebeeck Park, Edleen and Terenure have been without power.

A spokesperson for the Ekurhuleni municipality, Zweli Dlamini has apologised to residents affected by the outage and said teams are working hard to ensure power is restored as soon as possible.

“All options are being undertaken simultaneously and should we get materials needed today (Sunday), then power will be restored today,” he said.

Dlamini said delays in restoring power were due to some challenges that their technical team faced, which included being unable to gain access to some of the homes the cable network runs under.

“The fault on the 66 kV network has been located and repair work has commenced. Once concluded the cable will be tested, power restored if the test results are positive. Components are currently being outsourced to repair the step-down transformer, enabling the use of the 88kV network. Any of the two cables will be able to carry the whole load and restore all affected customers,” he said.

Dlamini said a specialised test team has been also been brought in to assist with locating the fault between Spartan and Van Riebeeck Park. He said the cable previously tested clean, however it keeps on tripping the network each time it is energised.

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