South Africa’s latest power cuts highlight Eskom challenge

JOHANNESBURG: South Africa was hit by power cuts yesterday after a number of Eskom generating units broke down, highlighting the challenge facing President Cyril Ramaphosa in rescuing the state power firm. Eskom said it would cut 2,000 megawatts (MW) of power from 9 a.m. local time (0700 GMT) until 11 pm (2100 GMT) on a rotational basis across the country, the first power cuts in around seven months. The rand fell as much as 1 percent against the dollar at one stage after Eskom’s comments, which will put more pressure on the country’s weak economy ahead of a review by Moody’s, the last of the big three credit rating agencies to have an investment grade rating on South Africa.

Eskom produces more than 90 percent of South Africa’s electricity but has been hobbled by technical faults at its fleet of mainly coal-fired power stations. Johannesburg residents, who have grown used to frequent power outages over the past decade, expressed renewed frustration about the impact on their lives.

“It’s almost year-end and this is when we make money,” said Bridgette Moyo, 29, a hair stylist. “We make money out of this business through electricity; if it’s not there then we are going down.”

Eric Gyimah, 26, a media consultant, said the power cuts were a “huge inconvenience”. Eskom said close to a quarter of its roughly 45,000 MW capacity was offline on Wednesday because of unplanned breakdowns and faults including boiler tube leaks and broken a conveyer belt for coal.