South Africa’s Eskom intensifies power cuts

South Africa’s power utility Eskom implemented severe power cuts Tuesday after several generation units failed, the latest in a decade-and-half of blackouts that have stymied economic growth.

The continent’s leading industrialised country generates more than 80 percent of its electricity from coal-fired plants that regularly break down, causing blackouts.

Rains that lashed parts of the country, including the eastern coal-producing Mpumalanga region over the Easter weekend, made coal stored outside wet and difficult for the boilers to handle.

On Tuesday, Eskom escalated power cuts after two more generation units broke down, adding to failures at several other ageing units that occurred on Monday.

The latest round of outages will run until Friday, but the flood-stricken city of Durban will be spared.

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter told a media briefing that slightly more than a third of the company’s generating capacity was unexpectedly unavailable, a figure which he said is “unacceptably high”.

The firm warned the country to brace up for as many as 101 days of power outages this year.

Eskom’s power transmission chief Segomoco Scheppers said South Africa could endure between 37 and 101 days of blackouts, known locally as load shedding.