Explosion at Klaarwater substation disrupts Durban electricity supply

What happened

On a Tuesday night in October 2022, an explosion at the 275 kilovolt Klaarwater substation, described as a key electricity supply point to Durban from Eskom, left much of the city of eThekwini without power. Outages affected the northern, western and southern regions. By the time of the report, power had been restored in most affected areas, except Shallcross, where teams were still working. The municipality apologised for the outage. The cause was under investigation.

Contributing factors

The cause of the explosion was not reported and was said to be under investigation.

Lessons learned

1. A failure at a key supply substation can cut power across several parts of a city at once, so restoration plans should cover wide, simultaneous outages.
2. After the main restoration, operators should identify and prioritise areas that remain without supply.
3. Until the cause is known, similar equipment should be checked before it is treated as unaffected.

Source

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