While some in SA celebrated more than 100 days without load shedding, our electricity problems are not over. The lived experience of many people, particularly in townships, has not improved at all. In addition, many of the electricity problems will become local and the elites will have no incentive to solve them.

Listen to this article 6 min Listen to this article 6 min On Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa began his weekly newsletter by noting that South Africa had gone for more than 100 days without load shedding.

He was correct to mark the moment. Load shedding has been responsible for huge economic damage and a dramatic decline in living standards for millions of people in SA.

He was also correct to state that "it is not a reason to relax". As he pointed out, there is still much to do until South Africa has a proper reserve margin of generation capacity.

However, there are indications that the electricity problems will devolve to the local level, where they will be more difficult to solve.

Many urban municipalities are implementing load reduction, where they cut off areas for long periods. This is because their networks cannot cope with the load that is placed on them.

There are a number of reasons for this.

First, many people are stealing electricity; they bypass meters and use power without paying for it. This overloads transformers and councils simply switch off that area (the roots of this are deep: the ANC has been accused of...