Cold snap exposes the obvious — Joburg’s power grid can’t cope

Sharon Oosterberg (65) lives in Northcliff and, like many residents across Johannesburg, lost electricity on Tuesday morning, 11 August, and remained without power until it was restored on Wednesday afternoon

For Oosterberg, the outage was more than an inconvenience. She relies on an oxygen concentrator to support her breathing and depends on a continuous electricity supply to operate the equipment.

She has a portable battery to keep the oxygen equipment running during power cuts, but it provides only about three hours of backup power.

“During longer outages, I then have to charge it in the car,” she told Daily Maverick.

Johannesburg residents faced repeated power outages this week as the city experienced some of its coldest winter weather.

City Power reported widespread outages across the metro and severe backlogs in Lenasia, Hursthill, Randburg, Reuven and the inner city. Badly affected suburbs experienced prolonged outages of 24 to 48 hours, with some systemic blackouts lasting even longer.

On Monday, Lenasia accounted for 455 open City Power outage calls, the highest number across Johannesburg’s eight service delivery centres. By Wednesday, City Power in Johannesburg recorded more than 6,000 outstanding outage calls during the cold front, a significant spike, even for City Power.

July problem areas

Daily Maverick has been tracking power outages, and during July 2026, our captured tracking data recorded 440 major area-level incident notices across City Power’s service delivery centres (SDCs).

While these logs represent high-level distributor, feeder and substation failures affecting entire neighbourhoods, the actual volume of individual customer calls logged during peak winter demand was exponentially higher – with City Power routinely dealing with between 2,000 and 3,700 open customer calls daily across the metro.

Repeated outages

Lenasia resident Tulane Mavundla told Daily Maverick on Tuesday: “It’s not just the cold front and wet weather. We are subjected to random power cuts on a regular basis. And now, with one of the coldest days we have seen so far, you can imagine the random power cuts have worsened.”

Jason Lawyer of Emmarentia told Daily Maverick that Tuesday’s outage was no surprise. “We have them every weekend or every second weekend, and they can last anywhere between one hour and five hours.”

Although he has a generator, which helps keep his lights on, he said his electricity costs have risen, from roughly R3,500 a month to R10,500 over two months.

Malan Kritzinger, who lives in Orchards, said his electricity went out on Saturday afternoon and has been intermittent since then, with the power off for most of the past few days.

He said he had made numerous attempts to contact City Power to resolve the problem. During the last four-day outage, Kritzinger logged tickets with City Power, only to discover that they had subsequently been cancelled. When he called to follow up, he was told that the ticket had been resolved. However, he still has no power.

The only feedback Kritzinger has received came from a City Power employee who visited his home to inspect the problem. According to Kritzinger, the worker said he had only a few small tools and lacked the equipment needed to resolve the fault.

With no further feedback from City Power, Kritzinger said he has resorted to directing his complaints through his ward councillor.

City Power responds

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said that the recent cold weather and a spike in electricity demand added strain on Johannesburg’s old, fragile and poorly maintained electricity infrastructure. 

“The current cold and wet weather is placing significant pressure on the network. Higher demand from heaters and other appliances during the cold spell, combined with waterlogged ground that delays safe excavation and cable repairs, is extending some restoration,” Mangena said on Tuesday.

Speaking to eNCA on Wednesday, he elaborated on the crisis City Power is currently facing.

“We need to also appreciate the fact that we are still running that old infrastructure within the City of Johannesburg and the recovery from load shedding did not really assist because it hasn’t really gone as fast as it’s supposed to.”

The Auditor-General’s 2024/25 Consolidated General Report on Local Government Audit Outcomes shows that more than 60% of all power outages in the city are attributed to deteriorating and outdated networks.

Mangena also attributed the crisis to a lack of investment in infrastructure improvements and maintenance. City Power currently has an infrastructure backlog of more than R44-billion. DM