Eskom has implemented a fifth straight day of controlled blackouts on Monday and will carry out more this week to prevent a total collapse of the electricity grid amid a shortage of capacity.
Businesses are empty and many roads are gridlocked in cities throughout South Africa as the power cuts — which take place blocks of roughly four hours each — cripple productivity. Eskom, which supplies almost all the power in the nation, is currently cutting 2GW of supply and will double that from 9am through to 11pm, doing the same tomorrow, it said.
Eskom is seen as one of the biggest risks to the country’s economy, burdened by operational and financial woes stemming from years of mismanagement and massive cost overruns on two new coal-fired power stations that should have been completed in 2015.
Maintenance teams at Eskom“are working round the clock to return generation units to the electricity system”, the Johannesburg-based producer said in an e-mailed statement. The cuts are “no cause for alarm as the system is being effectively controlled”, it said, adding that during stage-four load shedding, when 4GW of demand are taken off the grid, about 80% of the nation’s demand is being met. — Reported by Ana Monteiro, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP