The debacle surrounding South Africa’s bid to secure emergency power supplies has highlighted a dysfunctional energy policy that’s subjecting the country to intermittent blackouts.
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The former chairman of both Telkom and Eskom, Jabu Mabuza, a widely admired businessman, died from Covid-19 complications on Wednesday, his family announced.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is finally making good on a longstanding pledge to enact policy reforms, signalling the tide may be turning for the coronavirus-battered economy.
As Eskom shifted from stage 1 to stage 2 to stage 4 load shedding and then back to stage 2, then stage 3 this week, the impact on Johannesburg’s City Power grid has been chaotic.
Eskom will suspend load shedding at 8pm on Friday, but it will implement the rolling national blackouts at stage 1 on Saturday and Sunday evening “for a limited period”.
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday moved to deal with the electricity supply crisis harming the South African economy by lifting the limit on self-generation of power to 100MW.
The president has encouraged mobile operators, Icasa and the department of communications to engage in mediation to get South Africa’s spectrum auction back on track.
Eskom was forced to implement stage-4 load shedding at short notice on Wednesday, despite having cut the level of planned maintenance at its power stations to just 1.3GW.
Eskom has implemented stage-3 load shedding due to further breakdowns at the Kusile, Matla and Tutuka power stations.
Eskom is escalating load shedding to stage 4 on Wednesday, meaning it is cutting 4GW of supply from the grid, as it struggles with plant breakdowns.