A full investigation is underway following an explosion at Aloes substation, the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality Executive Mayor Retief Odendaal announced.
The explosion led to an electricity blackout of surrounding areas within Motherwell including 15 Coega IDZ (Industrial Development Zone) customers.
The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality held an emergency JOC meeting, to trigger swift action to circumvent the impact of the explosion and get into the bottom of what might have caused it.
“Following the JOC meeting, a full independent investigation into the causes of the explosion has been launched as there is a suspicion of foul play. Today, the Municipality will be meeting the CDC and affected businesses to develop a solution that will mitigate adverse impact of the constrained electricity supply,” Odendaal said.
The damage to the substation infrastructure is estimated to be more than R40 million.
As a short-term electricity solution, and to circumvent further negative impact on customers and residents, plans are currently underway to back-feed and restore electricity supply from another substation also within the Coega IDZ.
On a medium-term, a line will be constructed to reconnect the affected residents and IDZ customers from a nearby substation, while construction work continues.
Odendaal said a contractor is already on site to restore electricity on the short to medium term. Security is currently being re-inforced to protect critical strategic infrastructure.
“Residents are encouraged to be vigilant and work together with the Municipality and law enforcement agencies to curb vandalism and criminality targeted at Municipal infrastructure that provide basic services to our community,” he said.
He said that the Municipality would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused by the unexpected outage: “We are working hard to restore power to the affected residents and businesses.”
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