With South Africa enduring record power outages, the government has given assurances that the electricity grid won’t be allowed to collapse. Yet increasing numbers of businesses are preparing for that very eventuality.
Mining and telecommunications companies, retailers and private hospitals are spending millions of rand on batteries, solar panels and generators to safeguard their operations as the electricity supply from state utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. grows increasingly unreliable. More than half of its generation capacity has been regularly unavailable, leading to blackouts of up to 12 hours a day.
A total grid collapse isn’t “highly probable, but you have to plan for that,” Ralph Mupita, chief executive officer of MTN Group Ltd., Africa’s largest wireless carrier, said at an investor presentation this week. Eskom protects the system from collapse by implementing rotational power cuts and reducing supply to industrial customers.
In a recent court filing, Eskom warned that disruptions to water supplies and sewage systems — which have already been affected by the rotating power cuts that cause pumps to malfunction — could become more prolonged and widespread should the grid go down. It also anticipates fuel shortages, which would have a knock-on effect on transport and industry, as well as on hospitals, laboratories and morgues that rely on backup generators.
_Business If the market isn't opened to private energy producers it will collapse, and everyone knows it.