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Electricity has been restored to at least 60% of consumers in some parts of Pretoria East.
This after thousands of residents in the area were left in the dark for almost five days after the 132KV Wapadrand substation caught fire on Tuesday last week.
"We have restored electricity to about 60% to 70% of consumers and we are busy with the last board, and are testing it, to ensure that we restore electricity to the remaining areas," member of the mayoral committee for utility services Darryl Moss told News24 on Monday.
Moss said, although they were not sure of the exact time, they were hoping that electricity would be restored to all the areas by Monday evening.
The fire at the substation affected areas around Wapadrand, Faerie Glen, Silver Lakes, and Koedoeberg.
Moss added that it was still unclear what had started the fire. He said the City was conducting its own investigations, in addition to that of the insurance company.
"I must admit that we first prioritised the rebuilding of the substation before prioritising the actual investigation. This was so that we ensure that consumers are put back online," he said.
Moss said that, when electricity had been fully restored to the remaining areas, they would start focusing on the investigation to establish the cause of the fire at the substation.
"Most of the areas are now back online, with an exception of one area, where we discovered that a piece of cable was stolen, and so we had to repair and are still in the process of doing so," he said.
On Friday last week, Moss said the City had had to rebuild the whole station, as it had been totally destroyed.
He said the costs of fixing the damage to the substation, judging from their previous station that caught fire in Mooikloof in 2017, would be almost R80m.
