South Africa’s Rolling Power Blackouts Enter Ninth Day

(Bloomberg) -- South Africa’s Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. reduced the intensity of rotating power cuts on Friday -- the country’s ninth straight day of scheduled blackouts -- after imports from Mozambique were partially restored.

South Africa’s supply from the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric system was cut about a week ago when Cyclone Idai damaged pylons in neighboring Mozambique. The loss of imports compounded an existing shortfall in South Africa after several of Eskom’s generating units broke down.

About 890 megawatts of supply has been restored from Mozambique, said Andrew Etzinger, Eskom’s acting head of generation. The utility typically receives more than 1,000 megawatts from Cahora Bassa.

Eskom, which supplies 95 percent of South Africa’s power, will cut 2,000 megawatts from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday. That’s an improvement from the 4,000 megawatts it’s cut on other days this week. The state-owned utility is grappling with a range of operational issues from breakdowns at old coal-fired stations to defects at new ones.

The cuts, known locally as load-shedding, leave roads gridlocked across the country and stunt business productivity. Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has said it will take up to two weeks to determine how long the outages will last, warning that Eskom may need one to two years to stabilize electricity supplies.

--With assistance from Felix Njini.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Burkhardt in Johannesburg at pburkhardt@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Thomasson at lthomasson@bloomberg.net, Liezel Hill, Hilton Shone

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.