Rich Residents Getting Around Nation’s Rolling Blackouts With Pricey Private Energy

Rich Residents Getting Around Nation’s Rolling Blackouts With Pricey Private Energy

Nick Pope on July 28, 2023

Wealthy South Africans have turned to installing private solar panels to insulate themselves from the nation’s shoddy power grid and rolling blackouts, according to Semafor.

Eskom, South Africa’s beleaguered state-owned utility company, recorded an uptick in solar installations in June that was larger than that of the previous six months, according to Eskom data. Wealthy South Africans are turning to solar panels and home batteries in an attempt to keep their lights on as the country regularly undergoes rolling blackouts, according to Semafor.

While Eskom struggles to perform its most basic function, a combination of tax credits and cheap Chinese solar panels has incentivized South Africans to purchase the devices, according to Semafor. South Africa has seen the addition of one gigawatt of power generation from solar panels over the past two months, according to Semafor.

According to Africa News, Eskom is alleged to be plagued by corruption and mismanagement. The company’s former CEO said in April that the company loses $55 million a month to corruption and waste, while the company continues to drown in debt and fall short of reliably meeting the country’s energy demand. (RELATED: BRYAN DEAN WRIGHT: The Democrats Want America To Be More Like South Africa. That’s A Terrible Idea)
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“What you’re seeing in these numbers is households and the private sector taking matters in their own hands,” said Wikus Kruger, the director of the Power Futures Lab at the University of Cape Town, according to Semafor. “It’s being driven not by government policy per se, but by desperation.”

Hours-long blackouts are a common occurrence in South Africa, with more “load shedding” hours recorded so far in 2023 than in all of 2022, according to Semafor. South Africans who use solar panels are not completely disconnected from the Eskom grid, but solar panels do decrease reliance on the Eskom grid as well as the amount of energy a home draws from the grid, according to Semafor.

If the country’s wealthy citizens continue to decrease their reliance on Eskom, the country’s poor could end up subsidizing the energy system to a greater degree than the wealthy, according to Semafor. This could be the case because Eskom bills are based on energy use and fixed costs of its system, and with solar panels using less energy from the grid, wealthier ratepayers may be responsible for a smaller share of the fixed costs than lower income South Africans, according to Semafor.