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Once the highly infrastructure developed economic powerhouse of Africa, South Africans these days are more interested in the outlook for rolling blackouts. The country’s most-downloaded app provides schedules, alerts and forecasts for power outages.
Eskom, the state power monopoly, is struggling to generate enough electricity to meet needs, and has re-introduced a byzantine system of rotating outages known as “load-shedding.” On February 11th a whopping 4,000 megawatts of power, enough to power some 3m households, was cut from the national grid to prevent it from collapsing. Some businesses have bought generators and battery systems; others close during outages. In big cities, there is chaos at rush hour as traffic lights go dark. The blackouts suit copper-cable thieves, who can steal without fear of electrocution. And when the electricity is switched backed on, substations sometimes explode, resulting in secondary outages.
https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2019/02/21/why-the-lights-keep-going-out-in-south-africa
[paywall: you can see the whole article in 'anonymous view' through startpage.com]
More on the situation:
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/267263-south-africas-electricity-system-is-falling-apart-and-it-is-much-bigger-than-just-eskom.html
How to bring back the lights in South Africa?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hartree on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:23AM (2 children)
No one needs to bring race into it, though, sadly, they probably will.
Incompetence, crony-ism and corruption are equal opportunity. Look at any of several of the former Soviet republics for examples.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:47AM (1 child)
Along with the stupid promises the ANC made to the people of South Africa when they came into power.
They were never going to achieve half of what they promised, and now it's been 25 years and things are no better for most people the ANC is starting to lose it's grip on power.
There will be real trouble when they actually lose their parliamentary majority, and that day is coming.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @06:57PM
That's crazy, socialist governments NEVER fail!