South Africa’s struggling power utility warned rolling blackouts may continue throughout the week as electricity cuts entered a fifth day, further weighing on the nation’s struggling economy.
Plant breakdowns resulted in Eskom losing as much as 12.5GW by early Monday, the company said in an e-mail. It will be cut 2GW from the grid through load shedding. While most of the utility’s problems emanate from plant failures, it’s also grappling with handling coal from continuous rains and flooding at some power stations.
“There is a high probability of load shedding until the end of the week,” Eskom said.
Eskom cut 4GW from the grid on Friday, the most since March, to prevent a collapse of the grid. Debilitating power outages have emerged as the biggest threat to economic growth.
The state-owned company that provides about 95% of South Africa’s electricity is struggling with a R454-billion debt burden, declining revenue and ageing plants. Eskom has a total generating capacity of 47GW. — Reported by Felix Njini, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP