The damage to the Koeberg nuclear plant was done deliberately and was not an accident, Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin said on Tuesday.
”The investigation is ongoing and we will bring criminal charges against individuals soon,” Erwin said.
One of the two generators at Koeberg was damaged in December in what Erwin now described as sabotage, causing severe outages in the Western Cape over the past month.
Early on Tuesday morning, the other generator at the plant was shut down automatically due to a trip in the high-voltage power line.
”It will take some time to bring Koeberg up again,” said Valli Moosa, chairperson of the Eskom board.
Erwin said this means that suburbs of Cape Town will go without power for periods of about two hours until the generator is running again.
Line tripped
Tuesday’s blackouts in the Western Cape were necessitated by multiple line faults that occurred at 2.13am, which interrupted power to the province, Eskom said earlier on Tuesday.
”The Droërivier-Bacchus high-voltage transmission line (400kV) that runs between Beaufort West and Worcester tripped,” Eskom said.
”This caused an over-voltage on the network, resulting in several other transmission lines in the Western Cape network tripping. Power supply to the Western Cape and some parts of the Northern Cape was interrupted.”
Koeberg power station responded to the unusual activity on the network and removed itself from the national electricity grid. Koeberg unit two is currently not generating electricity.
”At 2.23am, the northern ring of the Cape transmission network was stabilised and restored. Power supply to the Northern Cape and some parts of the Western Cape was restored.”
An Eskom mobile team was dispatched to go on site to investigate the cause of the fault that resulted in the tripping of the Droërivier-Bacchus transmission line.
”The team has reported back that sections of the voltage transmission in the Worcester area were on the ground. The equipment that holds the line to the tower is damaged,” said Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu.
”They are working on the repairing the damage, but heavy rain in the area is hampering turnaround time.”
Zulu said he could not conclusively explain what caused the damage, because it could have been anything from thermal overload to foul play.
Train services
Metrorail appealed to commuters in the Western Cape to find alternative forms of transport as early-morning power outages disrupted train services.
”The train service is very erratic this morning. Commuters should make their own transport arrangements, at least for the morning peak,” Metrorail spokesperson Riana Scott said.
”If anyone is stuck on a train somewhere, do not disembark until you are given instructions to do so. Commuters should not worry about getting to work late as we will inform major employers of the problem.”
Scott said the Chamber of Business would be advised and would in turn inform its members that some employees would be late for work.
”Everyone knows of the outages. It’s an Eskom problem; we cannot do anything.”
Motorists were warned to exercise caution on the roads as traffic lights in the City Bowl area, Rondebosch, Newlands, Parow, Goodwood and Elsiesrivier were not working. — Sapa