Harare — Power interruptions, both scheduled and unexpected, appear to be business as usual in certain African countries, including Liberia, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
Now South Africa has joined those ranks.
The country is in the grip of rotational power cuts, called load shedding. Power utility Eskom "sheds" power from the national grid when demand outstrips supply and engineers impose rolling black-outs to ensure that the whole grid does not collapse - a disaster that could trigger a weeks-long total blackout while they struggle to get the system back up.
Load shedding has been the reality every day since the start of 2023, according to a local tracker. All indications are that the situation won't be remedied for many months ahead. Just recently, Eskom's board chairperson, Mpho Makwana, said South Africa was going to be hit by power cuts for at least two more years.
Across the country, a schedule of power cuts dictates two- to four-hour periods when power supply is cut off, and this is done in stages: Stage 1 means the least loadshedding, while Stage 8 could mean hours and hours of load shedding. In addition, the schedules vary from region to region and municipality to municipality. In some areas, schedules are implemented more efficiently than in others - and Eskom sometimes changes from one stage to another with very little notice.
Small business owners everywhere say the planned power outages are badly damaging their everyday operations. Some predict job losses as the power outages continue, which could have repercussions in Africa's most developed economy.
The new normal
For South Africans, this is the new normal. People develop workarounds as lack of power affects both personal and working lives.
The same goes for Zimbabwe. We've been told that our daily power outages are because there is not enough water in the Kariba dam to operate the country's primary hydropower plant. As a result of the drought and low inflows from the Zambezi River and its tributaries, Kariba's water level has been slowly dropping.
Living in Harare has altered how I work as a journalist. When we are without electricity for an extended period of time, I get concerned and uneasy. But I still have to make certain that my responsibilities are met without fail.
To make things even more difficult, Zimbabwe's power utility switches off power randomly - there's no timetable, which makes it almost impossible to plan ahead.
At allAfrica.com, we haven't been spared. To accommodate load shedding and make sure that we continue to function as a media business, the company has had to step in and help. With allAfrica's help, I have managed to make an investment in a larger battery.
Solar energy has been a great way to offset the costs of my energy demands and has given me relief from load-shedding.
While I have been fortunate to have the help of my employer, these solutions are not in the reach of many people. They are not cheap! A decent, reliable solar system costs around U.S.$2,500. Zimbabwean workers are ranked among the world's working poor with latest records stating that average salaries for local workers range between local currency equivalent to U.S.$100. You do the math.
My colleague Melody Chironda says load shedding has "caused chaos" in her day-to-day personal and work life.
"Sometimes, my UPS is not fully charged when we get hit again by power cuts, leaving us to resort to mobile hot-spotting, which, by the way, is very expensive. Worse, if it's load shedding, my mobile network gets really crappy and sometimes won't have any service. As a result, sometimes I miss critical deadlines or important and urgent emails."
It's not only her work which has been affected. "Power cuts have even affected my diet. Right now, I'm tired of eating cold food or cooking late. I'm even contemplating buying a gas stove because, at this point in time, there is no telling when load shedding will end for good. I'm tired of juggling life, work, and chores because of the hectic load shedding schedules."
Load shedding has taken a toll on some people's mental health, including Melody's.
"Due to my busy schedule, my stress levels and anxiety are always high, and I'm always feeling on edge," she said.
In South Africa, a plan is made
My coworkers in Cape Town and Johannesburg are suffering the same fate.
The Covid-19 pandemic had everyone working from home - and that brings its own challenges when load shedding hits.
Esther Rose, a colleague who's based in Cape Town, has adjusted her work schedule - and has grappled with an ever-changing set of working tools. "At the beginning, I used a dongle loaded with airtime and hot-spotted at times to keep working. I then went on to Telkom ADSL internet - 20 mbps and then Telkom fibre for higher speeds - 25 mbps and then 50 mbps," she said.
"I also bought a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to eliminate the interruption of my work due to the load shedding frequency. I switch from using the desktop, to using the laptop, as an alternate when there is no electricity."
Esther says adjusting hasn't been much of a hassle. "For me, the adjustment has been fine, as long as I keep the laptop charged and ready, as sometimes the schedule changes without warning and it could impact one's work."
But work as a whole has been affected, she says. "Load shedding has really impacted on our work as an online news site. Colleagues in other parts of the country and across our borders are hit harder most times. This causes delays in work being completed on time and sometimes work cannot be allocated and has to be delayed. This can lead to frustration on all sides. We are all hoping that a lasting solution to this crisis can be found."
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Nontobeko Mlambo, a coworker based in Johannesburg, says "working under load shedding is a nightmare". For her, it's been hard to manage and balance her work and personal life under load shedding.
"The truth is that not everyone can afford backup power solutions like a generator and UPS solutions to back up home Internet and Wi-Fi connection."
Nontobeko says that in Johannesburg, the schedule is sometimes not accurate. "We get the schedule on a day-to-day basis, sometimes we get short notice that we are moving from one stage to another making it hard to plan my day," she says.
Her job requires that she interviews people from different countries for articles, so she often has to postpone interviews. "Scheduling these is a nightmare as I am never sure if I will have to postpone the interview on the day, making me look unprofessional and unprepared. During power outages the mobile network is negatively affected making it even harder to communicate with colleagues during load shedding."
The media landscape changes again
The media landscape keeps changing - there always new obstacles, constraints, and new inventive narrative techniques. Changes in how and where news is made and received are driven by technological and societal trends. These developments have had an influence on how we work at allAfrica. But because a free and independent media sector that can keep the continent informed and hold leaders to account is crucial for strong and sustainable democracies, we will always adjust to what's thrown at us.
