South Africa has largely adapted to stage 2 load shedding, say economists at the Bureau for Economic Research (BER), but beyond these levels, households, businesses, and the economy at large simply cannot cope.
State power utility Eskom announced load shedding at various stages this week, starting with stage 4 load shedding during the day on Monday, escalating to stage 6 during the evening peak, before falling back to stage 4 overnight.
Not only is the damage to the economy due to lost productivity around R4 billion at stage 6, but the cost of diesel to prevent stage 8, adds more to the bill. However, the economists noted that, beyond the immediate costs, the long-term impact of these record-high levels of load shedding on households and businesses also needs to be factored in.
“Furthermore, some municipally-managed water reservoirs deplete during load-shedding and do not always have sufficient time to recover, while even traffic lights with backup battery power supply tend to stop working after a few hours.
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