Lotus substation burns, leaving several suburbs without power

City Power and external assessors are investigating the cause of the Lotus substation fire, south west of Johannesburg, on Sunday evening.

The utility’s spokesperson Isaac Mangena said teams were assessing the extent of the damage.

“The fire, which damaged the transformer and neutral earth compensators,  has been extinguished and Eskom isolated power from its side to allow safe operations,” he said.

He said due to the severity of damage, the team will procure material including a new transformer, cables and terminations and will start work on Monday morning.

“While we are working to ensure power is restored as quickly as possible, we are looking at a worst-case scenario of five days to complete the repairs and restore power,” said Mangena.

“We are in contact with the councillor and community leaders who are being updated on progress.”

The station has been running on one transformer after the standby transformer and feeder burnt last year.

Affected customers include those in Vlakfontein, Madala Section, and Hospital Hill.

The fire department extinguished the blaze late on Sunday evening.

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