Part 1/10:
The Rise and Fall of Eskom: South Africa's Electricity Monopoly
In January 2025, South Africa's electricity monopoly, ESKOM, made headlines by announcing its first round of load shedding in over ten months. This event, akin to rolling blackouts, aimed to prevent the national grid from collapsing. The previous year had seen a relative improvement: a mere 83 days of load shedding compared to 332 days in 2023 and over 200 in 2022. Despite this relative reprieve, ESKOM, one of the largest and most critical companies in South Africa, is struggling under the weight of an ongoing energy crisis.