Exploding substation reportedly causes outage at Pretoria court
2023Published 18 Oct 2026Responsible editor: Chief Editor
Get the next one by email
Free alerts on grid infrastructure incidents in South Africa, and an email when EIR-2451 is updated. No account needed; unsubscribe in one click.
Get a free sample brief Three complete verified records and the incidents-per-GW table, by email within a minute.
By signing up you agree to the privacy policy.
What happened
A substation reportedly exploded and caused a power outage at a court in Pretoria, South Africa, according to a News24 headline published on 18 January 2023. The text available for this entry did not carry the full report, so the sequence of events, the length of the outage, the operator and owner of the substation and the cause are not known from this source. The headline refers to the public works department. No injuries or damage are recorded in the material available.
Contributing factors
Not reported in the source text available.
Lessons learned
- Substation switchgear and transformers should be inspected and maintained so that faults are found before they lead to failure.
- Public buildings that rely on a single supply point should consider backup power or an alternative supply route.
- Operators should share confirmed findings on the cause of substation explosions so that other sites can check for the same fault.
More lessons on electrical protection and isolation, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.
Source
Published 2026-10-18. Written from public reporting. Descriptive, not investigative. See the data accuracy disclaimer.
