Buckle up for onslaught of electricity cuts, City Power warns Joburg

City Power has warned Johannesburg residents to brace for a wave of planned power interruptions across February and March as the utility rolls out maintenance at multiple substations.

City Power said the outages formed part of routine repairs, but has warned that restoration could be delayed if weather conditions interfere with the work.

The latest electricity update outlines a packed maintenance schedule affecting several parts of the city. Alexandra underwent an interruption on Wednesday, 25 February, from 9am to 5pm, with areas including West Bank, Far East Bank extensions 9 and 10, and parts of Lombardy East affected.

On Thursday, 26 February, the Lunar Substation will be offline during the same hours, affecting Univille, Lawley, Finetown, Mountain View, Ennerdale Ext. 8, and Lenasia South.

On Sunday, 1 March, maintenance at the Siermert Substation will affect Berea, Troyeville, Jeppestown, Fairview, Highlands, Doornfontein, New Doornfontein and the Johannesburg CBD.

Additional outages are scheduled in early March at the Commercial Switching Station and Star Point Switching Station, while Riviera, Mondeor, Meredale, Naturena, Kibler Park and Alan Manor are earmarked for interruptions later in the month.

Mid-March maintenance will affect areas served by the Hursthill Substation, Noordwyk Switching Station, Unisa Switching Station and First Avenue Switching Station in Roodepoort North.

City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena told Our City News that their technical teams were responding continuously to faults logged by residents.

“It is worth noting that there are currently no widespread outages on a daily basis, but our technical teams respond to outages as and when they are logged by customers,” Mangena said.

System ‘constrained’

City Power has described the electricity system as “constrained” and urged residents to reduce consumption where possible to prevent further strain and unplanned blackouts. While scheduled interruptions are positioned as proactive maintenance, they come against the backdrop of a far more troubling assessment of Johannesburg’s electricity infrastructure.

According to the City of Johannesburg’s Infrastructure Plan 1.0 (2024/25), the context of these recurring outages is that City Power is facing a R44.25-billion asset renewal backlog. The report confirms that ageing and deteriorating infrastructure contribute to frequent and worsening outages, while also flagging serious public health and safety risks linked to failing assets.

Mangena said the ongoing outages were caused by a combination of ageing infrastructure, network overloading, vandalism, cable theft and illegal electricity connections.

He emphasised that large portions of the city’s core electricity network, including underground cables, substations and transformers, were between 60 and nearly 100 years old.

Across 269 substations, much of the equipment has exceeded its intended lifespan. Of 216 power transformers, about 20% are classified as high risk due to age and insulation deterioration, while about 10% of 717 feeder boards require replacement.

Mangena said repeated interruptions in the same areas were often linked to sustained pressure on infrastructure caused by high demand and dense illegal connections. Even after repairs, underlying strain could result in further failures if root causes were not addressed.

Mangena stressed that outages were not primarily the result of poor maintenance planning, claiming that City Power frequently met and in some cases exceeded its maintenance targets.

However, he acknowledged that restoration could be prolonged: “Restoration times can be lengthy, especially when underground cable faults are involved. Crews must excavate trenches to locate damage, conduct testing, and, in some cases, rebuild sections of the network. Severe weather, restricted site access and multiple simultaneous faults across different regions can further extend downtime,” he said. DM

This story is produced by Our City News, a nonprofit newsroom that serves the people of Johannesburg.