Now to South Africa where the president
Ramaphosa is holding emergency meetings
To address the country's deepening
Energy crisis authorities have been
Imposing rolling blackouts as the
Countries of the embattled, power utility
Struggles to meet demand and the power
Cuts are hitting the economy does
Christine Tundra, reports from
Johannesburg
This generator is keeping tango,
Business running
But the backup power solution is not a
Cheap one and it's costing a lot
More to continue serving the local
Summer favorite in Soweto we are
Fortunate that we have invested in a
Generator but the costs of running have
Grown because we need to uh purchase a
Petrol regularly
The past few weeks have seen some of the
Worst power cuts on record in south
Africa with the power utility Epsom,
Rolling out nationwide blackouts locally
Referred to as load shedding for up to
As much as 10 hours a day, even in hospitals
Have not been spared, it does affect a
A lot of our equipment that we do have on
Site for example, as I have mentioned
We have our elevators that are obviously
Put onto the generators which keep going
On and off, which has also put patients
In very dangerous situations being
Inside there and not able to be
Able to get out
In a country that already has high
Levels of crime the power outages are
Further, compromising safety and security
In some areas
People are scared to even use the roads
At night that it's so pitch black uh at
The intersection right behind me being
One of the hot sports people are getting
Robbed-getting mug cars are being stolen
At gunpoint, so those are the issues that
We face load shedding especially
When it's pitch black at night
South Africa's coal power stations
Supply most of the country's electricity
But these power stations are not
Functioning at full capacity, south
Africa uses on average about 27 000
Megawatts the moment we're struggling to
Produce 21 and in an electricity system
You've got to match supply and demand
Instantaneously exactly the reason we
Have load shedding or load reduction in
South Africa is that it's to prevent the
Grid from collapsing while the power
Outages are a necessary evil public
Outrage is growing
What riles people up here is
That much of the country's electricity
Problems have been epidemic, to endemic
Corruption at the state-owned power
Utility and slowness by the
Authorities to invest in new sources of
Energy, especially as the country's coal
Power plants are very old, they break
Down easily and often have to go for
Maintenance that puts them out of
Commission
As the electricity crisis further
Deteriorated the managers of the power
Utility held emergency meetings with the
Country's president and other
Stakeholders
But South Africans have been warned
There is no quick fix
And that the outages will continue for
At least another year of this from energy
Analysts to Clyde Mallinson whom we saw
In Christine's report, he joins us from
South Africa, he phoned us from
Um, South Africans have been putting up
With these power cuts for years last
Year though it was the worst on record
With 205 days, just explain to us how it
Got so bad
Uh, it's in the very simplest terms we
Haven't put a new enough new capacity in
A place to cover for the declining output
Of the coal fleet, so the cold feet have
Been getting older and it hasn't been
Declining linearly, it's starting to
Decline exponentially and there's a
A mismatch between what we've put in as
The new generation with the rate at which
The old coal fleet is now declining and
The bits that are working are all having
To pick up an extra load, and we all know if
You put an extra load on fewer pieces of
The equipment they're more likely to break
And that's the position we've
Got ourselves into and what part has
Corruption played in this
It's one of the elements, it's one of the
Elements, but I would say the biggest the
The biggest problem has been policy deadlock
Uh, these have been on hiatus for about
Seven years I think that the uh
The replacement of the new generation has
Stalled and we haven't done it and
What's been the biggest problem, and then
If you add to that, corruption and
Other things it doesn't help so
They knew that this was coming because
Predictably, you have
The equipment gets old, you have to
Replace it so
What is the policy deadlocked over we
Have to replace these, these power
Plants let's replace these power plants
One seems to follow the other, but you
Say there is a deadlock over what
Yeah, I think just in terms of
The fleet, I think the decline of the
Fleet has caught out the policymakers
And Epsom, even Epsom itself so
There's that old saying how did you
Go bankrupt slowly at first and rapidly
And so it's been it's been
One of the things I saw was that uh you
Now you're going to get a big shock
When you go to your cardiologist one day
And he explains to you that you didn't
Look after your heart properly and now
It's breaking and we're kind of in
That phase hasn't been the
Urgency
To get it to get a crack on really
Putting new generation in place so
There's a special meeting convened by
The president today to address this
Crisis what do you expect to come out of it
Look, there's been any number of meetings
So there's been cabinet meetings with
These cabinet ministers, the meeting at
The moment is with the parliamentary
Crisis committee, I think they call them
And that broadens the scope of
People who attend, so it's not just
Cabinet ministers, it's premiers of the
In provinces, there'll be various advisors
But at this stage, it's almost it's
Frustrating because many
Of us have been calling and predicting
This crisis for some time and the
The message that we've had is to do something
With a degree of urgency before the
Crisis becomes a disaster and I'm afraid
We are in disaster territory at the moment
It's it needs almost a wall-like
Efforts to pull us out of this, I think
I'm a logistics
Thank you for explaining that so clearly
Uh energy analyst Clyde
Mallinson
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