Cable fire reported at Van Eck substation, Brakpan, leaving much of the town without power

What happened

A fire reportedly broke out at the Van Eck substation in Brakpan, Ekurhuleni, South Africa, in the week before 13 February 2024. According to the Freedom Front Plus, a political party, the fire halted the substation's operations and left the greater part of Brakpan without electricity. The party says municipal workers restored power to half of the town within a number of hours, and the remaining supply was restored on the Saturday.

The party also reports water problems in Brakpan, which were resolved by the Sunday. The party says it rushed to the scene and informed fire services. The account comes from a party press release and has not been confirmed by the municipality, fire services or an independent investigation.

Contributing factors

The party attributes the fire to a lack of maintenance and repairs, linked to reduced funds for infrastructure maintenance in the 2023/24 budget, and says municipal workers have had to repair infrastructure without the necessary equipment and parts. The party presumes the fire was caused by an earth cable stolen from the substation some time earlier. These are the party's assertions and not findings of an investigation.

Lessons learned

1. Protect substation earth conductors and cable routes against theft through physical security, regular patrols and asset marking.
2. Ring-fence maintenance budgets for critical grid infrastructure, since cuts can leave crews repairing equipment without parts or tools.
3. Detect missing earthing and damaged cables early through routine inspection, and hold spares for critical components.
4. Plan restoration so that supply to a whole town does not depend on a single substation.

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

Source

vfplus.org.za