The City Power substation that powers Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station with electricity was tripped after being struck by lightning on Monday night, the water utility reported.

Accordingly, a City Power technical team has been dispatched to the site to undertake a reset.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Rand Water said that the extent of the impact of the power trip on its pumping operations had not been established and an update would be provided once the City Power technical team had reset the substation.

Earlier in March, Rand Water’s Eikenhof pump station had been impacted by a power failure at City Power’s transformer, which was also struck by lightning, followed by an incident the following day, which ultimately led to a two-week water outage across several City of Johannesburg areas.

Meanwhile, earlier on Monday evening, Rand Water issued a statement noting that the water utility had been engaging executive mayors of the various Gauteng metropolitans amid high water use.

The water utility said that it was experiencing an upward trend in water consumption in most areas of Gauteng’s metropolitans, which are consuming more than 75% of the water produced by Rand Water.

“To address the continuing upward trend, Rand Water leadership, under Rand Water chairperson Ramateu Monyokolo, is meeting with executive mayors of Gauteng’s metropolitans. To date, Rand Water has met with the executive mayors of the cities of Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg.”

Part of the meeting agenda was the high water consumption and possible solutions to mitigate this.

Rand Water provides bulk potable water to 18 municipalities through a number of interlinked strategic reservoirs, which means that high consumption in one area or system places a strain on the entire system.

High consumption necessitates Rand Water pumping more water to metropolitans, depleting the water utility’s storage.

“The daily technical team meetings between Rand Water and Gauteng metropolitans to discuss and implement technical solutions continue to take place. Rand Water will continue to engage the Gauteng metropolitans in efforts to reduce their water consumption and avert interrupted supply.”

According to Rand Water, the executive mayors in both Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni supported initiatives by the technical teams to reduce consumption and pledged to drive the initiatives at that level.

“Rand Water has requested a similar meeting with the office of the executive mayor of the City of Tshwane but has not received a response as yet.”

Meanwhile, according to Johannesburg Water, the Sandton 1 and 2 systems, listed among the top 10 highest consuming meters in the City of Johannesburg, are under strain owing to high water consumption. Alexandra has been identified as being the highest water consumer within the Sandton 1 and 2 meters supply zone.

“The persistent heatwave in the past few weeks and the lack of rain has resulted in high demand. Currently, demand is outstripping supply. Residents are urged to conserve water and observe level-one water restrictions,” the utility said on X on Monday.

Under level-one water restrictions, watering of gardens, filling of swimming pools and the use of hosepipes to clean paved areas and driveways or wash cars are prohibited between 06:00 and 18:00.