This sounds like a nightmare!
Eskom seems to have been around for a long time, but this problem seems to have kicked in a little over a decade ago.
Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent?
Eskom seems to have been around for a long time, but this problem seems to have kicked in a little over a decade ago.
Did something recently happen to Eskom to make them incompetent?
Apartheid South Africa's government focused on providing electricity mostly for the white minority, which it did well, but the majority of South African, especially in the rural regions, lived with no or unreliable power supply. Post 1994, with removal of sanctions, the economy opened up. There was a lot of international investment in South Africa. The economy grew strongly and the demand for electricity significantly increased.
The supply side was woefully mismanaged and didn't nearly keep up with the pace of the growth in demand. Corruption is definitely a key reason, as others here mention, with the effect being that power plants are not adequatly maintained and new planned power plants going far over budget and missing deadlines [1].
Besides corruption, there are some policitical constraints. Eskom provides power to municipalities who often don't pay. Soweto, with 1.3 million residents owe Eskom in excess of $1 billion [2]. The South African Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that Eskom is not allowed to cut power to non-paying municipalities [3]. In contrast to a free-market system, Eskom price hikes are subject to regulatory approval [4].
One could debate the relative significance of each of these factors, but it's by no means due to only a single one of these.
[1] https://www.news24.com/fin24/Budget/how-medupi-and-kusile-ar...
[2] https://mg.co.za/article/2019-10-18-00-why-we-dont-pay-for-p...
[3] https://www.iol.co.za/pretoria-news/news/eskom-cannot-cut-el...
[4] https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/companies-and-deals/electric...
That's not true. Majuba Power Station was commissioned between 1006 and 2001, although planning started in the Apartheid era. Gourikwa Power Station and Newcastle Cogeneration Plant were commissioned in 2007.
There are a few wind farms built after 2001: Hopefield, Coega, Darling, Klipheuwel, Dassiesklip Wind Energy Facility and Jeffreys Bay.
And solar: Kalkbult, Mulilo Renewable Energy Solar PV Prieska, De Aar Solar PV, Mulilo Renewable Energy Solar PV De Aar, SA Mainstream Renewable Power Droogfontein, Letsatsi Solar Park, Lesedi PV Project, Kathu Solar Energy Facility 1, Sishen Solar Facility and the Jasper Solar Energy Project.
But these were not enough to keep up with the demand.
>> The supply side was woefully mismanaged and didn't nearly keep up with the pace of the growth in demand.
Demand for electricity consistently went up over the past 20+ years, with no matching increase in generation capacity.
Maintenance of current power plants hasn't been great either, and the supply/demand situation is precarious such that if any one of the power generation plant is offline for maintenance, there are likely to be compensatory blackouts somewhere.