WHAT IT MEANS

ou are sitting at your desk and the power goes off. “More load-shedding,” you think. The building’s diesel generator kicks in and you finish your work, noticing your cellphone is offline, too. Driving home takes a long time because no traffic lights are working. The house is dark and you notice the water pressure in the taps is dropping. You have a cold meal and go to bed by torchlight.

In the morning there is still no power, no water and no cellphone reception. You decide to go to the gym to shower and pick up a takeaway coffee on your way. The gym is closed and so is the coffee shop. A few people are milling around but no-one seems to know what is happening.

You go to the unlit shop at the garage but they say there has been a rush to buy water and they are out of stock. You decide to fill up your petrol tank, which is running on empty, but the fuel pumps are not working. You manage to make it to the office but it is closed. You have no idea what is wrong because there is no TV or radio, no Internet and no cellphone reception.

By the third day, your cellphone battery is flat, your home alarm system is no longer working, your car has no fuel and you are getting very thirsty . . .

This is the worst-case scenario if Eskom fails to prevent a total collapse of the system. Because SA has no neighbours with large electricity grids who could help it to restart the system, it could take up to two weeks to restore full power to the country.

Large-scale power blackouts have happened in many countries, triggered by storms, system overloads, failure of protective measures and human error.

The world’s biggest power outage occurred in mid-2012 in India, affecting 680m people over two days. Another major