How South Africa’s load shedding crisis escalated over 17 years

How South Africa’s load shedding crisis escalated over 17 years

South Africans have been plagued by varying stages of load shedding since 2007, with the recent years being the worst out of the 17 years.

Data from the the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) data reveals how much gigawatt hour (GWh) was shed per year from 2007. (In simpler terms, it refers to how much power was shed.) The data also shows the duration of the outages in hours.

In 2007, South African experienced 176GWh with ‘unknown’ load shedding stage, meaning it does not fall under the current load shedding stages we all know and hate.

In 2008, it increased slightly to 476GWh, also with the same ‘unknown’ load shedding stage. There is no information for the hours of load shedding in these years.

The years 2009 to 2013 saw no load shedding or data was not recorded for it.

Then in 2014, South Africans had 121 hours of load shedding, with an energy shed of 203GWh. According to the data, this was Stage 3 load shedding.

The year 2015 saw a drastic increase from the previous year, with 852 hours of load shedding and 1,325GWh shed. That year, Stage 1 and 2 were mostly implemented.

Like 2009 to 2013, the years 2016 and 2017 had no load shedding or no data was recorded for it.

In 2018, South Africans were left in the dark for 127 hours of load shedding, with shedding of 192GWh. Stage 1 load shedding was implemented.

In 2019, there was a significant increase in load shedding compared to the previous year, with 530 hours recorded, resulting in 1,352 GWh of energy shed. Load shedding ranged from Stage 1 to Stage 4.

In 2020, the hours of load shedding increased even further to 859 hours, with a corresponding energy shed of 1,798 GWh. Load shedding varied between Stage 1 and Stage 4 throughout the year.

Load shedding hours continued to rise in 2021, reaching 1,169 hours, and the energy shed escalated to 2,521 GWh. The implemented load shedding stages fluctuated between Stage 1 and Stage 4.

The year 2022 marked a significant spike in load shedding hours, totalling 2,773 hours, with a substantial energy shed of 11,529 GWh. Load shedding stages ranged from Stage 1 to Stage 6.

In 2023, South Africans endured a record-breaking 332 days of load shedding, and according to EskomSePush data, a total of 19,793 GWh had been shed between January and September 2023.

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