Explosion at Mason's Primary Substation disrupts power in Pietermaritzburg

What happened

An explosion occurred at Mason's Primary Substation in Pietermaritzburg, in the Msunduzi municipal area of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, on or around Thursday 23 July 2020, according to an ECR report dated 24 July 2020. The Msunduzi municipal spokesperson said the blast caused severe damage and that one substation had blown off. Several areas lost electricity, including Mason Mills, the Umgeni Water pump station, Scottsville Extension, the Grange, Westgate, Afrox, Eden Garden Private Hospital, Somta Tools, Ridge Park, Richmond Crest and parts of Pelham.

At the time of reporting the municipality could not say when power would be restored, and its teams were assessing the damage. The report was published during a landfill fire in the same city, which had produced smoke. The municipality said the smoke affecting the N3 near the New England site came from firefighting efforts, and the road was closed.

Contributing factors

The source does not state the cause of the explosion. It does not report whether any equipment failed or whether the fire or smoke in the city affected the substation.

Lessons learned

1. Substation explosions can remove supply to hospitals, water pumping stations and industrial users at the same time, so operators should map critical loads that depend on each substation.
2. Municipal networks should keep tested restoration plans and temporary supply options ready so that outages of unknown duration can be managed.
3. Where substations are close to other hazards such as landfill fires, operators should consider how smoke and firefighting activity could affect access and monitoring.

More lessons on outages, backup supply and restoration, detection and monitoring, from every incident on the register.

Source

ecr.co.za