Power crisis will continue until 2025 – and blackouts will take 5 years to phase out

Hartmut Winkler

South Africa is in the middle of a severe electricity crisis, with enforced power cuts that have worsened every year. Electricity is sometimes unavailable for 10 hours a day. The shortfall is the consequence of frequent breakdowns at its ageing coal power plants, which constitute 74% of the country’s generating capacity.

In theory, improving the performance and reliability of the existing coal plants would resolve the power crisis. This remedy is promoted in some quarters. But it’s easier said than done. To function satisfactorily, many of the plants would require a complete overhaul, which would be both time consuming and prohibitively costly.

Estimates suggest that South Africa needs around 6,000MW of extra capacity to overcome the current deficit. The following sections explain why I predict it is likely to require as long as five years to eradicate this shortfall, though partial improvement should already be felt by the