The rand was on the back foot in morning trade on Wednesday (21 September), as it drifted towards R18:00 to the dollar ahead of a slew of data both locally and internationally.
Empowerment project stumbles in Khayelitsha, showing the complexity of providing solutions to informal settlements.
Load shedding, which is now almost a daily occurrence in South Africa, is more than just a major inconvenience – it’s a crime risk too and has resulted in an increase in home break-ins and vehicle accidents.
South Africa will move ahead with the allocation of three onshore wind stations from a delayed round of bidding to provide renewable power, an initiative intended to help mitigate record levels of power cuts.
Load shedding will continue to be implemented at Stage 5, with the possibility of reducing one stage by Thursday, Eskom said in a statement.
The South African municipality that includes the port city of Durban, eThekwini, has laid out plans to attract R324 billion ($18 billion) in power plant investments by 2035 amid the country’s worst-ever electricity outages.
Power utility Eskom says that a total collapse of the national grid would be an unforeseen event, and its system operator would not be able to give advance warning should it occur.
The national power utility announced that its new procurement programmes would focus on generators capable of supplying more than one megawatt to the grid.
While load shedding has long been the clearest evidence that South Africa is in the midst of an energy crisis, there is more to that crisis than just uncertainty of electricity supply, warns financial services company FNB.
Eskom says that it is able to reduce load shedding to stage 5 on Monday after several power stations were returned to service overnight.
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