August 23 is a special day for Eskom: for 150 days there has been no loadshedding. Not since 2019 has South Africa experienced uninterrupted power from the national electricity utility for this long.

Loadshedding is Eskom’s way of dealing with its inability to generate enough electricity to meet the country’s needs. The schedule of planned blackouts has been in place for so long that a generation of young adults has no memory of a time when you could cook meals without having to plan around whether you’d be able to use your oven.

Last year was the low point for Eskom. There were 335 days of loadshedding in 2023, many of them at Stage 6 – which means supply was 6,000MW short of demand.

A recovery plan has been put in place, says Eskom board chair Mteto Nyati. In the meantime, South Africans have been finding ways to rely less on Eskom by installing solar panels and cooking with gas.

Unfortunately for people living in Joburg, municipal power company City Power has stepped into the breach by introducing two-and-a-half hours of ‘load rotation’ a day. One step forward…