The deterioration of power supply capacity led to the continuation of power rationing measures in South Africa

 

For the national power restriction measures that have lasted nearly a month, Eskom warned on the 8th that the current power restriction order may continue for some time. If the situation continues to deteriorate this week, Eskom may even increase the power outage.

Due to the continuous failure of generator sets, Eskom has implemented large-scale national power rationing measures since the end of October, which even affected the national local government election process in South Africa. Different from the previous temporary power restriction measures, the power restriction order has lasted for nearly a month and is far from over.

In this regard, the reason given by Eskom is that due to the “unexpected fault”, Eskom is currently facing difficulties such as continuous shortage of power generation capacity and unsustainable emergency reserves, and the power staff are racing against time for emergency repair. In this case, Eskom was forced to continue the power rationing until the 13th of this month. At the same time, it is not ruled out that with the continuous deterioration of the situation, it is possible to continue to increase the power outage.

What is more serious is that similar problems have occurred in the power plant opened by Eskom in Zambia, which has affected the power supply system of the whole southern Africa.

At present, with novel coronavirus pneumonia overall improvement, the South African government will also focus on accelerating economic recovery, but such large-scale power restriction measures also cast a shadow over the economic prospects of South Africa. Gina schoeman, a South African economist, said that large-scale power rationing had a huge impact on enterprises and the general public, and maintaining normal production and life under power failure would undoubtedly bring higher costs. “The blackout itself makes the situation very difficult. Once the blackout intensifies and a series of additional problems occur, it will make the current situation worse.”

As one of the most important state-owned enterprises in South Africa, Eskom is currently in a deep debt crisis. In the past 15 years, poor management caused by corruption and other problems has directly led to frequent power equipment failures, which has led to a vicious circle of continuous power rationing in all parts of South Africa.


Post time: Nov-12-2021