South Africa, which has the continent’s only nuclear power plant, has around half of sub-Saharan Africa’s power generating capacity, roughly 44 gigawatts. Still, the power cuts contributed to a recent drop in economic growth and a spike in unemployment to 26.4 percent, the worst level in a dozen years.
The rolling blackouts have affected everyone from giant gold mining companies and manufacturers to small businesses and individuals.
South Africans are now buying up generators, rechargeable lights and gas burners. They plan their days and evenings around scheduled blackouts by the utility. Dominating South Africa’s list of popular app downloads are ones that alert smartphone users to the impending start of a cutoff in their neighborhood or the risk of one as load shedding across the nation increases from Stage 1 to Stage 2 or Stage 3.
To Ms. Ngwenya, who was sharing meat pies with her family in the parking lot, load shedding was not only about electricity. She blamed the African National Congress, the party that liberated South Africa and has steered its course ever since.
“I always supported the A.N.C.,” said Ms. Ngwenya, who grew up in Soweto, a black township outside Johannesburg, but now lives in a wealthy suburb. “However, when it comes to load shedding, I don’t know. It’s not normal coming to a mall and carrying a torch like this man here,” she said, pointing to another consumer shrouded in darkness.
“For me, this is the biggest failure of the A.N.C.,” she added. “We even have a name for it, load shedding. Why don’t they say blackout once and for all?”
In Sandton, a Johannesburg suburb with gated communities and sumptuous malls, Junior Nji, 38, walked out of a well-lit Woolworth’s in an otherwise dark mall. His wife had just sent him a text message with the news that their neighborhood had gone dark and not to bother getting groceries.
“Load shedding boo,” she had written him, using a term of endearment. “This can’t be life.”
That morning, Mr. Nji said, he had finally decided to buy a diesel generator for his house, and workers had come to prepare for the installation. But Mr. Nji, an architect, was holding off on plans to move to a bigger office because of the extra costs of equipping it with a generator. He had been planning, he said, to hire an additional architect and a draftsman.
He texted his wife: “Then let’s go out somewhere. That Chinese restaurant might just be O.K.”
Article Appeared @http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/world/africa/weak-power-grids-in-africa-stunt-economies-and-fire-up-tempers.html?hpw&rref=world&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0