City attends to severe Wynberg power infrastructure damage, area outages across the metro

11 July 2024

The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Alderman Xanthea Limberg and senior Energy officials visited Wynberg where Electricity teams urgently attended to weather-damaged infrastructure. In Wynberg, severe weather last night caused high levels of damage to some property and infrastructure. City teams have been working around the clock to attend to all electricity service requests in the metro. Delayed repair times may be experienced due to the safety conditions required for electrical work and high call volumes.

‘The severe weather conditions over the last 24 hours have caused widespread damage to our electricity infrastructure and our teams are working around the clock to attend to hundreds of service requests, including over 22 area faults. All our teams and contractors remain on high alert.

‘While hundreds of faults have been resolved in the last 24 hours, we could see hundreds more faults being reported during the course of the day if strong winds or rain intensifies. Damaged infrastructure from harsh weather conditions typically takes longer to repair and it is extremely unsafe for City Energy teams to use aerial platforms as a result of the strong winds. In many instances, the accurate times of restoration are regrettably not possible to provide to residents.

‘High call volumes are being experienced and our outage list which we provide to the public is being updated as information is received from the teams on the ground. We encourage residents to report their faults to us via our service channels, including our new WhatsApp line, and to keep an eye on our social media channels for updates on the area outages,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy, Alderman Xanthea Limberg.

Switch off, so we can switch you back on

City Energy teams fixes faults in areas as soon as possible. But often cannot switch customers back on because the power keeps tripping.

This is because of the large volumes of grid-connected inverters, and other power hungry appliances, coming on all at the same time – totally overloading the system, and causing it to trip.

Please unplug all grid-connected inverters especially.

They automatically connect to the municipal supply.

This causes a surge when the power comes back on.

Then it trips again, and is off.

Switch off to switch back on.

Please disconnect connected inverters (and switch off power hungry equipment such as geysers and heaters) to prevent tripping, so that power can be restored.

The impacted areas include:

• Wynberg

• Lakeside

• Brooklyn

• Rondebosch

• Plattekloof

• Penelyn Estate

• Woodstock

• Mfuleni

• Bergvliet

• Fish Hoek

• Grassy Park

• Meadowridge

• Lentegeur

• Rocklands

• Philippi

• Eagle Park

• Constantia

• Bishopscourt

• Plumstead

• Athlone

• Pinelands

• Steenberg

• Newlands

• Gugulethu

Please note: The City’s area outages list is being updated as information is received from the Electricity teams. If an area is not included, it does not mean teams are not aware of the matter.

Electricity services and damage: (please only log on one channel):

WhatsApp: 060 018 1505

Call Centre: 0860 103 089

SMS: 31220 (Free SMS service doesn't apply)

Email: power@capetown.gov.za

eServices: www.capetown.gov.za/servicerequests

End

Published by:
City of Cape Town, Media Office

Storms electricity power supply