Two weeks without power in South Africa’s capital city

• Residents of several suburbs in the City of Tshwane were left without electricity for two weeks and said they were being kept in the dark about the progress in restoring power.
• The incident occurred amid severe weather conditions, including intense hail, heavy thunderstorms, and unseasonal cold temperatures. The incident caused a 132kV supply trip at the Njala infeed station, which supplies electricity to a substantial portion of Tshwane’s central and eastern suburbs. In addition to Waltloo’s own supply area, the trip affected suburbs supplied by the Heatherly, Highlands, Mooikloof, Lynnwood, Scientia, Villeria, and Wingate substations.
• The last time that an area in the city experienced such a long-lasting outage was in early 2022 following a fire at the Mooikloof substation.