South Africa’s persistent power cuts: What you need to know

A child collecting chunks of coal looks on as smoke rises from the Duvha coal-fired power station owned by state power utility Eskom, in Emalahleni, in Mpumalanga province, South Africa [File: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters]

South Africa is facing its worst power cuts in two years as state utility Eskom implements “stage six” outages this week, meaning at least six hours without power a day for most South Africans.

Africa’s leading industrialised country – and second-largest economy – last experienced such drastic outages in December 2019.