Johannesburg, 09/05/2023 -(MAP)- The recurrent blackouts affecting power plants in South Africa risk leading to a general collapse of the national grid, plunging the whole country into darkness, said the expert in electricity Hartmut Winkle.
“A single outage can trigger cascading outages down the line,” said Winkle, an energy analyst and physicist at the University of Johannesburg, warning that the pressure generated by this situation can cause a collapse of all the production units.
Power outages in South Africa have reached an unprecedented level in recent months. The supply of the national network has continued to deteriorate since last winter (May-October), the public electricity company « Eskom » having decided to move to higher levels of loadshedding, after the numerous blackouts which weighed down its production capacity.
Eskom had indicated that the recurring breakdowns combined with the planned maintenance program of its coal-fired power plants, caused the national grid to lose nearly 23,000 MW out of a total production capacity estimated at 40,000 MW.
