The Pretoria CBD was without power again on Wednesday from noon, the City of Tshwane said.
“It is not yet clear what might have caused the problem,” spokesperson Console Tleane said.
The power outage was affecting the same areas that had been without electricity for more than four days last week, Tleane said.
These were areas west of the CBD, including Pretoria West Industrial Park.
The power was initially disrupted during an attempted cable theft last Tuesday, when a 30 square centimetre copper cable — carrying 132 kilovolts of electricity — was damaged.
Tleane said the city’s engineers were attempting to route power from a nearby 110-kilovolt cable to restore electricity to some of the affected areas. If this was successful, half of the power could be restored within two hours, he said.
“Because of the delicate nature of this particular infrastructure it has taken some time for the engineers to fix the problem,” Tleane said during last week’s protracted power outage.
Residents were requested to switch off non-essential appliances.
Tleane apologised on behalf of the city for the inconvenience caused by the power failures. — Sapa