GAUTENG. – The DA says Tshwane municipality's use of a type of rotating power cuts, known asload reduction, following the fire at the Waltloo substation points according to the party to serious problems with the city's electricity network.
Alderman Cilliers Brink, DA Tshwane's mayoral candidate, says the fire damaged the Njala import substation, which according to him is one of the key points from which Tshwane receives bulk electricity from Eskom. He says there is concern that critical transformer capacity at Njala has been lost and that the damage could be more serious than what the city has indicated. According to Brink, the loss of transformer capacity has led to attempts to apply power rotation to prevent the remaining capacity from being overloaded. He says the city must find an engineering solution as soon as possible to stabilise the power supply, possibly by routing electricity from other import substations.
Brink also refers to a report from the city's energy and electricity affairs unit of one June 2026, in which according to him it was warned that insufficient capital and operational funding exposes the electricity network during the 2026 winter peak to a high risk of widespread unplanned power cuts.
The DA says he has filed a complaint with Nersa to determine whether Tshwane complies with its electricity licence conditions, including maintenance obligations. Brink further calls on the city to inform residents and councillors regularly about the restoration plans and requests an independent engineering assessment of the condition of the electricity network.
This article is an automatic English translation of a Nuusflits article originally published in Afrikaans. Read the Afrikaans original.
