Load shedding leads to less power output, less consumption

Load shedding, in addition to the sluggish economic growth, are the main reasons behind the drop in power generation and consumption, an economist has said.

According to Statistics SA’s electricity production and distribution report released yesterday, production decreased by 2.9% while consumption declined by 2.8%, year-on-year in March.

Seasonally adjusted electricity generation decreased by 1% in March compared with February.

South Africa experienced one of the worst implementations of load shedding as the national Eskom grid battled to keep the lights on in February, March and April.

Electricity production in South Africa.

Jannie Rossouw, head of the school of economic and business sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand, said there must be a link between load shedding and the decline in power generation and distribution.

“We had lots of load shedding in the first quarter of this year and less generation would obviously result in less distribution. This is in addition to the lack of economic growth,” he said.

The top three biggest power guzzlers in terms of the provincial breakdown are Gauteng, with 4,534 gigawatt-hours (GWh), followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 3,544 GWh and Mpumalanga with 2,833GWh.

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