There is plenty to be despondent about living in South Africa right now. But every now and then a glimmer of hope arrives to keep us believing that the future we all deserve is possible. Like the arrests this week of former SAPS national commissioner Kgomotso Phahlane and other generals in SAPS Crime Intelligence. These arrests follow those of Brian Molefe and Anoj Singh last month. You might recall their names from the #GuptaLeaks where we exposed their dodgy Transnet contracts.

The wheels of justice do turn, sometimes slower than we would like, but the corrupt and the criminal get their day in court. Glimmers of hope go a long way. Help us create more of them by supporting the work of independent journalists dedicated to finding solutions.

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Not for the first time, ordinary South Africans are stepping up where the government isn’t… From creating apps to alert others about load shedding, to parking their cars and assisting as point guards to keep traffic moving, our collective ability to take care of each other when the chips are down might be the last thing keeping us going.

We can’t all be out repairing potholes and drilling boreholes. But what Daily Maverick can do is to ensure that we provide the only tool that enables all South Africans to make themselves heard: information.

To our readers: we’re asking for your support. We don’t have a paywall because our journalism is free. It is not, however, free to produce. If you, like us, have had enough, then help us by contributing whatever you can so that you have free access to the truth of what is happening at all levels of government to make an empowered vote.

We may literally be in the dark but everyone that calls South Africa home deserves to be enlightened.

No knight in shining armour or pretty optics orchestrated by the Presidency will provide a solution.

As South Africans grumble their way through another week of crippling blackouts, questions are being asked anew about what needs to be done to end South Africa’s years-long electricity crisis. Experts and environmentalists in the energy sector share their ideas.

Also read: “‘Rapid green energy transition’ could save world trillions of dollars — Oxford study“

In response to nearly two weeks of rolling blackouts, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan announced that 18 former Eskom employees with experience had been recruited. Heavy hitters who worked their entire lives at Eskom have been brought in.

Former president Thabo Mbeki has implied that Eskom’s management may not be appropriately suited to run the state-owned power utility. Mbeki believes South Africa lacks true leadership in all spheres, whether in government or society.

The government has signed agreements for three projects and 420MW of wind power in the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme — but this is out of more than 2,500MW and 25 projects that were meant to be already on the grid this year. With a desperate need for more energy generation capacity – why the delay?

South African power cuts should ease over the coming days and the nation’s electricity supply will continue to improve over the medium term as new investments bolster generation, according to Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

If you were a Martian and you landed in South Africa today, what would you do to fix Eskom? The question is not who is to blame, or what we should have done years ago, but what we can do right now.

Stage 5 and Stage 6 rolling blackouts have become more frequent and public hospitals are forced to rely on backup generators for hours at a time. These measures often fail to meet the energy demands at facilities, causing delays in treatment and surgeries. The cumulative impact on an already overburdened health system is potentially devastating.

By Tamsin Metelerkamp and Naledi Sikhakhane

The amount of electricity you use each month has a significant impact on how much you will pay per unit. Unmonitored, your bill could cost thousands more than necessary.

A recent International Energy Agency report calls for a massive increase of concessional finance to mobilise large-scale private investment in hydrogen projects in developing countries. But how can hydrogen (a gas) be green and why is it necessary in the energy system? Our Burning Planet spoke to experts to find out.

We urgently need to adopt short- and long-term solutions, to the energy crisis in general and ever-more-serious load shedding in particular. The one without the other will plunge South Africa into an even deeper crisis, with disastrous economic consequences that will ultimately translate into mass protests that will make the July 2021 insurrection look like a picnic.

MMC Michael Sun says if the city buys 500MW of independent power, it can reduce the Eskom stranglehold and limit power cuts by 50%.

With Stage 6 rolling blackouts over the weekend, the electricity crisis in South Africa shows no signs of being resolved any time soon. The deepening power cuts left consumers in the dark for hours three times a day — and even more, in some parts of the country. 

At least four things helped us into the dark: a lack of vision and intergenerational policy-making; the grotesqueries of ‘our turn to eat’; affirmative action and transformation as ends in themselves; and criminality on the streets and in the boardrooms.

Good business practice compels the utility to maintain its delivery where its revenue is most stable — in municipalities where the Eskom account is current — to maximise sales and revenue. With some R400bn debt, Eskom cannot afford revenue losses in addition to the cost of rolling blackouts.

President Cyril Ramaphosa and his cabinet will meet to follow up on the short-term plans that were formulated after the previous time citizens were hit with power cuts. The country has yet again been experiencing scheduled outages as Eskom continues to encounter breakdowns at its stations.

Also read: Ramaphosa – “‘Solving the electricity challenge is vital for South Africa’s investment drive’”

South Africa’s ruling party recently proposed establishing a second state-owned power company. The purpose is to offset the “grave strategic risk” of relying on Eskom, the country’s monolithic state-owned utility.

The latest power cuts, which may not have even peaked at Stage 6, have once again ignited concerns about this country’s future and posed serious questions about our politics. Considering the magnitude of our problems with Eskom, perhaps this is a reasonable time to ask whether those running South Africa have the expertise, or power, to fix Eskom. Or whether the political heads really understand the pain that this crisis is inflicting on our economy and on people’s lives.

From crime to agriculture – after more than a decade, the inconvenience and deleterious impact on homes and businesses and the broader South African economy caused by power cuts has been well documented.

In South Africa, the provinces get 42% of all non-interest expenditure while local government gets 9.6%. Unfortunately, we often forget about this because everybody is focused on finding out what Ramaphosa and Gwede Mantashe are doing.

Even when the Auditor General says that 157 out of 257 municipalities cannot properly account for how they spent their money, we only talk about Ramaphosa. All the pundits are concentrating all their analysis on the actions of the President.

Premiers and mayors have a lot of power and resources.

Just before 4 am on Sunday, 18 September, Eskom CEO André de Ruyter’s phone rang. It was his COO Jan Oberholzer warning that red lights were flashing across the power grid and that diesel reserves that keep emergency power going were running lower at Ankerlig, one of two gas turbine power plants keeping the lights on as the coal-fired fleet is in its death throes. They pressed the button on Stage 6 (switching off or load shedding 6000 MW of electricity). By Ferial Haffajee

South African businesses and households are — for the second time this year — languishing in long stretches of imposed idleness and silence as Eskom notched things up to Stage 6 power cuts, with efforts to stave off Stage 8. Meanwhile, calls are being made to introduce emergency measures that include energy rationing.

After an urgent virtual meeting with ministers and officials, the President is on his way back to South Africa to ‘deal with current Stage 6 load shedding’ crippling the country.

Eskom has asked the National Energy Regulator of South Africa to approve a whopping 32.02% electricity price increase for the 2024 financial year, to take effect from 1 April next year.

At the end of July, municipalities across South Africa owed the country’s power utility close to R50bn. We unpack Eskom’s defaulters in graphic form.

In brief, look for the following when shopping for rechargeable bulbs:

When shopping for outdoor lights:

From standby and back-up generators to inverter generators, here are some of the things you should consider before buying one.

Eskom has been temporarily suspending services in some parts of the country as attacks on staff escalate. It says there have been 14 attacks on its staff in Gauteng up to 31 July. No arrests have been made.

By By Bheki Simelane, Suné Payne and Hoseya Jubase

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I’d like to see is a list of which neighbourhoods are exempt from rolling blackouts. Then I would like to see a list of which neighbourhoods Eskom execs reside in. I suspect the two lists will be disturbingly similar.

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