A blackout in South Africa is highly unlikely, given how expertly load-shedding is being handled to prevent a grid failure.

This is the opinion of Dr Wallace Vosloo, a specialist in high-voltage engineering who has more than 40 years of experience in Eskom.

According to Vosloo, it will take three weeks to restart the power network in the event of a total blackout. However, while he says load-shedding is here to stay, and stage 8 cannot be ruled out, he dismisses the voice messages being sent on social media claiming that Eskom is on the brink of a total collapse.

A brownout and not a blackout is the worst-case scenario, he says. In the video interview, he explains how a brownout would impact the country.

Eskom is currently plagued by various breakdowns along the national network and the implementation of stage 6 this week, the second time since 2019, has caused a degree of panic.

“The implementation of phase 6 is to balance the scale between demand and supply, thus stabilising the network,” explains Vosloo. “The different phases are modes of controlled load-shedding and not an indication of the network’s instability.”

Suspicions over breakdowns

According to Vosloo, one of Eskom’s biggest problems is that it has developed into a war zone for different political ideologies. This, he suspects, may have led to high-level acts of sabotage.

There is no way that the current level of breakdowns is normal; something is seriously wrong at Eskom and I blame the politicians, he says.

He explains that even though the power supplier is experiencing many difficulties, we are nowhere near a total collapse of the system.

“The people at Eskom are actually doing a brilliant job of controlled load-shedding, which is something that is not just limited to South Africa. I have travelled the world and I have seen many countries with the same issues due to old power stations,” says Vosloo.

Watch: Energy expert Dr Wallace Vosloo speaks to Izak du Plessis about a brownout and stage 8