Residents of Louis Trichardt experienced the inconvenience of an unscheduled power failure on Sunday evening when the electricity supply was interrupted just after 19:30. The failure lasted for about two hours before the prob-lem could be solved.

According to a spokesperson of Eskom, the reason for the failure was a 275KV circuit breaker that exploded at the local substation, next to the maximum security prison. As a result, the supply from the substation, which serves Louis Trichardt and various surrounding areas, such as Tshipise, Bandelierkop, Thohoyandou, Soekmekaar and a host of other places, was down. Pieces of debris flew in all directions, in some places setting the veldt next to the substation alight. Fortunately, the veldt was not very dry as a result of the recent good rains.

The exact cause of the explosion has not been determined, but the spokesperson indicated that it probably came about as a result of aging infrastructure. The substation is roughly 30 years old, which means that the ceramic hulls of the circuit breakers have started cracking. The circuit breakers are filled with oil, which is under pressure. During the course of operation, the breaker generates heat. Coupled with the high daytime temperature on Sunday, chances are very good that the breaker overheated and exploded.

Eskom’s workers were able to repair the power supply by bypassing the defective circuit breaker, but this is only a temporary solution. A new circuit breaker was being installed on Monday afternoon, which will hopefully restore the situation to normal.

In the meantime, the spokesperson indicated, plans are afoot to either upgrade the current substation or build a new one. Some R26 million have been set aside for this purpose. Given the cost of replacing old equipment, it might be worth their while to build a new substation from scratch.