Power Shortages: South Africa Braces For Dark Winter

South Africa, the continent’s most industrialised country, is in the grip of an energy crisis that critics say is much deeper than the authorities openly acknowledge.

The periodic electricity blackouts are expected to reach a critical stage as winter arrives in the Southern Hemisphere and sends energy demand soaring, experts warn.

Over the past 15 years, South Africa’s electricity crisis has been deepening, with power shortages blamed on insufficient investments in the country’s ageing coal-fired power plants.

The crisis has worsened over the past 12 months, with the country spared the debilitating rolling blackouts, known as load shedding, only on Christmas Day, New Year’s Day and a handful of other occasions.

To manage the shortfalls, the state-owned power company Eskom imposes daily scheduled rationing to cope with the production shortfalls.

But more recently the power cuts have lengthened, and many people are forced to endure blackouts of up to 12 hours a day.

Under pressure to end the power cuts, President Cyril Ramaphosa declared in February a National State of Disaster, a legal move introduced to prioritise efforts to address the problem.

He also appointed an electricity minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, with the sole task of ending the blackouts.

But analysts say Ramokgopa, a civil engineer and former mayor of Pretoria, has run into a series of obstacles.

The South African winter, which runs from June to August, can get cold, with temperatures plunging below zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas.

Ramokgopa has already warned people to brace for a dark and cold winter.

The treasury, meanwhile, has said the debt-saddled Eskom cannot borrow more funds for the next three years and needs to find the resources for badly needed repairs and refurbishments on its own.

The energy situation is so dire that experts warn the country could be on the brink of a widespread collapse of its electricity grid.

Eskom, which provides the bulk of South Arica’s electricity, can guarantee supplies of 27,000 megawatts, the new electricity minister has said.

But summer demand peaked at 32,000 MW, and in winter it can soar to 37,000 MW — raising the prospect of dire cold for millions of people.

Since the start of the year, South Africans have had just a single day of uninterrupted electricity supply — on the eve of demonstrations called by opposition parties to protest the blackouts.

The outages continue to hold back economic activity, with economists warning that growth could contract significantly, possibly plunging the country into recession.