{"id":817616,"date":"2025-03-19T09:03:43","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T07:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=817616"},"modified":"2025-03-19T09:03:49","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T07:03:49","slug":"how-much-money-south-africa-lost-to-load-shedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/817616\/how-much-money-south-africa-lost-to-load-shedding\/","title":{"rendered":"How much money South Africa lost to load shedding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The cost of power cuts to South Africa\u2019s economy plunged 83% last year as supply stabilized, a Council for Scientific and Industrial Research report<\/a> showed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The economy forfeited R481 billion<\/strong> in output due to load shedding, down from as much as R2.9 trillion rand in 2023 when there were record blackouts, according to the report released Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gross domestic product<\/a>\u00a0totalled R4.7 trillion last year, 0.6% more than in 2023, according to the state statistics agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The improvement came after state utility Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. increased maintenance and took other measures to improve the reliability of its coal-fired plants that generate the bulk of the nation\u2019s electricity supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Still, a streak of uninterrupted electricity has ended, with Eskom implementing intermittent outages this year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Auxiliary diesel turbines \u2014 designed to supply power during peak demand \u2014 are also being utilized more, the utility\u2019s data shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa this month warned that the system remained vulnerable because the procurement of more generation capacity has faced repeated delays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nation\u2019s sole nuclear power station, once regarded as Eskom\u2019s most reliable plant, has been among the units that have broken down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eskom said it is working to continue improving its fleet performance, which had an average 60% energy availability factor last year \u2014 the highest since 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While overall generation capacity remained unchanged, electricity demand fell 3% in 2024, helping the utility maintain supply, and it \u201ccontinues to trend down,\u201d it said. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Load shedding cost South Africa’s economy dearly, with the country losing enough money to buy a small country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":682205,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[4859,1164,1165],"class_list":["post-817616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-csir","tag-eskom","tag-load-shedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817616"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":817621,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817616\/revisions\/817621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}