We thank our customers for their patience and support while the City attended to the large-scale area outages and damage to electrical infrastructure. Work continues in preparation ahead of the next winter storms. This includes trimming of encroaching trees that affect and damage electricity lines, closing open pole top boxes, general maintenance of power lines and the conversion of overhead lines to underground lines where necessary. Residents are encouraged to help the City by cutting branches on their properties to prevent unnecessary outages.

The City encourages property owners or those renting a property to also do their bit ahead of the next bout of inclement weather by trimming trees and shrubs if possible, as it will help reduce prolonged outages especially caused by overgrown branches encroaching onto power lines. It is important to ensure the required clearance of at least 3,8 metres between vegetation or trees and power lines. Branches that encroach on streetlights also diminish their efficacy. Clearing of overhead lines can be dangerous and property owners can approach the City for advice if they have already let trees grow too close to power lines.

Prolonged outages were experienced and affected large areas due to the severity of the infrastructure damage recently. This had an impact on the restoration time. Eskom’s load-shedding has also contributed to the challenge of restoring power and/or high number of service requests due to nuisance tripping among others.

‘The City’s Electricity Generation and Distribution staff have been working non-stop while attending to outages. The ongoing maintenance work in preparation for these winter storms, including tree clearing efforts, has helped curb some of the impact of the stormy weather recently and we urge residents to please help the City by carrying out their own maintenance and to remove shrubs and tree branches growing into power lines, if possible. Observing safety protocols are essential. We once again wish to thank residents for their patience during this time,’ said the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy and Climate Change, Councillor Phindile Maxiti.

Should residents be concerned that there is a risk of trees on City property encroaching on City overhead power lines, they are encouraged to report these cases to the City’s Fault Reporting Centre on 0860 103 089 or FaultReporting.Centre@capetown.gov.za

Please note, during inclement weather, service requests increase and this can also impact on the time required to fix an outage. The City thanks all residents for their understanding.

End