Thousands of Kraaifontein residents were left without electricity last week due to cable theft and vandalism.
Lights went out on Tuesday evening after cables were stolen at Eskom’s Prospect Hill substation.
Eskom warned of prolonged outages due to significant damage to infrastructure at this substation.
According to Eskom spokesperson Kyle Cookson some 3 700 residents mostly from Fisantekraal, Klipheuwel and Perdeberg were affected by the power outages.
“Cable theft, the vandalising of equipment and illegal connections is a serious problem in the Western Cape that have resulted in prolonged power outages in affected communities that have left customers frustrated,” said Cookson.
Eskom urged its customers in the affected areas to switch off geysers and pool pumps during load shedding to prevent “cold load and pick-up issues”.
“Customers should wait at least 30 minutes after electricity is restored to switch on household appliances to prevent the tripping of electricity,” Cookson said.
Cold load pickup occurs when a distribution circuit is re-energised after an extended outage of that circuit.
A cold load pickup current can be high enough to cause instantaneous overcurrent and/or time overcurrent relays to operate when opening the breakers.
“This is exacerbated when the network is abnormal as in the case of customers in these areas who have experienced frequent power trips after their supply has been restored after load shedding.
“When cold load restoration occurs, operators will need to switch on electricity systematically.
“This means sections of customer’s electricity supply will be restored later than others in order not to overload the network that can cause further loss of supply,” the utility said.
Eskom appealed to the public to report electricity theft such as illegal connections, electricity theft, tampering, cable theft and vandalising of infrastructure.
- For more information or to report illegal activities, the public can contact the Eskom Toll-Free Crime Hotline on 0800 11 27 22 or the local police.
