City Power says it has completed the connection and commissioning of the new transformer at Cleveland substation, and should have electricity fully restored by early afternoon on Thursday.

The entity has had teams stationed at the substation since a fire broke out on Tuesday night, plunging several suburbs such as Benrose, Denver, Malvern, Jeppestown, Kensington and Heriotdale into darkness.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said Cleveland substation runs at full capacity with two transformers. When one caught fire on Tuesday, the substation lost half its supply load, leaving one transformer to service 50% of the customers. “So the substation was not completely 100 percent lost after the incident. And the area is mostly an industrial area, meaning with factories closed for Christmas, the impact on lives was minimal.”

Investigations into the cause of the fire are still continuing.

The damaged transformer was isolated and removed.

“A new standby transformer was commissioned and tested positively on Christmas Day with the hope of energising it and restoring power before the end of Christmas Day. However, for oil to soak in and have the transformer carry the load took longer than expected. We anticipate that the new transformer will be ready by early afternoon today on Thursday, after which power will gradually be restored to the residents,” said Mangena.

City Power CEO Lerato Setshedi said: “We are happy with the progress made by the team who spent sleepless nights at the substation since Tuesday.”

“We apologise that some residents were forced to have Christmas in darkness due to this unfortunate incident.

“It could have been worse had the city's fire and emergency team not responded as fast as they did and ensured the fire is contained and does not damage other infrastructure at the substation. We are grateful for that,” Setshedi added.