South Africa has had power shortages for over a decade. "Loadshedding" is when there isn't enough power and we have rotating blackouts to prevent a grid collapse. This is done by stage, with the higher the stage, the more power has to be 'shed'. This sheet contains data going back to 2015 for each time the stage of loadshedding was changed.

I used Pandas and CalMap to plot the highest stage of each day, and Excalidraw to layout the descriptive text and legend etc.

This is an update of a previous post I did here.

Am visiting family currently here in South Africa and not having electricity for 9 hours a day leading up to Christmas is absolutely horrendous, an absolute shit show.

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Any chance it can go back to 2014? I seem to remember that's when it started for real. When the excuse was the "coal got rained on"

Are they doing something to change this? As a Canadian I can't imagine living like that.

2017 compared to 2022... things can change pretty fast

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Climate change (AC) or what?

>Are they doing something to change this?

Absolutely, they've grown their population from 45m in 1998 to 60m in 2023; all while mostly relying on aging infrastructure.

So the change they're making is to make the problem worse.

One only needs to look north across the border into Zimbabwe where they measure their load shedding in days or weeks (as opposed to hours) to see that South Africa's load shedding is at its infancy.

40yr-old Koeberg Nuclear Power Station has the capacity to produce around 5% of the energy needs, where in order to continue operating after 2024, requires around US$1.2 billion in maintenance and upgrades. Its fate is in the hands of corrupt and inept officials.

Now, if you're lucky enough to afford it, you buy solar panels, batteries, generators and fuel. Load-shedding does not affect the lucky few... it follows that said lucky few (including the vast majority of politicians and officials) do not really have skin in the game here, and zero compelling reason to make positive changes.

What about water? There’s a shortage too right??

My dad talks about this all the time. It was once a country that had struggles but you could live there fairly well, but now it’s a complete shitshow. Load shedding is a result of what makes the country so unappealing; rampant corruption, unmaintained infrastructure, rampant crime. Shanty towns actually hook up to the power lines, putting huge strain on the grid without providing income to the power companies, and the government does nothing about it. He used to talk about going back to visit, he doesn’t any more.

The country is under new rule.

Was there in April 2022 when this started up again post Covid. Was stuck on table mountain for 3 hours while we waited for the generator to start or the power to come back on. Feel for the people there. Hopefully some good folks will start to help.

Good news is Braai needs no power!

I was thinking about visiting next month for a few weeks, should I reconsider?

Thank you

This looks like a githib commit history

I wonder what they’re trying to spell out.

The water shortages were far more localized, and are a thing of the past for the moment (most of the country is prone to long term drought cycles)

2017 caused 2022 in a lot of ways-maintenance was deferred to keep more generating capacity available in the short term but now we are paying for it with unscheduled breakdowns on that equipment

Not an increase in demand much as drop in generating capacity

Go to a tourist town they will always have power and everything as that’s the real money maker also consider waiting for anything bad to happen like a killing or something similar that makes headlines. Cheaper flights and extra security

You don’t hear russia sending floating nuclear plants to South Africa

Are you surprised? The blame goes back to the Apartheid regime who only built proper infrastructure for White communities, which represent only a small proportion of South Africans. Now that a greater proportion of the population has access to basic services and resources (rightfully so), there's not enough to go around.

The racist Apartheid regime should have thought about the consequences of underinvestment outside of White communities years ago. They thought that Apartheid would last forever I suppose.

Edit: It's amazing how may people are ignorant of the long-lasting impacts of apartheid on South Africa's ability to care for its citizens today. I'm not excusing mismanagement and corruption, but white South Africans like to blame everyone but themselves for the country's problems.

The backbone of South Africa's infrastructure (e.g. healthcare, energy, etc.) was built for only a tiny minority of the population. It is therefore incapable of supporting the entirety of the country's population without substantial investment and restructuring, which is difficult to do in a handful of decades.

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You will be fine. Hotels and Air bnbs usually have generators or inverters. Check that yours does. Just be cautious when you drive around (valuables in the boot, pay attention) and avoid lonely places.

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Apartheid ended 30 years ago.

ngl for a second i thought it’s a github commit history chart

Why has the problem gotten so much worse recently?

Clearly the load shedding problem has followed the same path as the country's cricket team

Uh what?

I'm well aware of that, but you can't reverse decades of neglect and underinvestment overnight. It's a structural problem that will always hold South Africa back.

I'm sorry but I don't agree. You cannot blame something that happened 30 years ago for something that got incredibly worse from 2016 to 2022.

Maintaining you electrical infrastructure is the bare minimum that a serious government should be able to do.

The problem I suppose is incredible corruption at every level of SA society. This is for sure linked to the Apartheid, but it cannot be used as an excuse today.

It's not just the electricity grid - it's healthcare and everything else. The hospital infrastructure was only built for the tiny white minority, but now everyone must use it. You can't build a healthy country on infrastructure that was made for a small few. This can't be solved quickly.

And this is coming from someone born in another colonial country called Canada. Canada treated (and still treats) its Indigenous peoples HORRIBLY. The country's policies over several centuries resulted in the subjugation, mistreatment, abuse, and in some cases even complete eradication of Indigenous people and communities.

The difference is that Indigenous peoples in Canada make up less than 5% of the population versus over 80% in South Africa. Imagine being so stupid that you would mistreat, subjugate, and underinvest in people and communities that make up over 80% of your country's population. And you wonder why South Africa is in such poor shape with high crime, high unemployment, bad infrastructure, etc.

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They aren't doing anything to fix it. We just have to sit here and suck it up. 🤷🏻‍♀️