The lights stayed on.
Now comes the hard part

For the better part of a decade, one of the first things South Africans
did in the morning was to check the load shedding schedule (likely via the EskomSePush app). It shaped supper, homework, deadlines, everything. So when the country went a full year without a single stage of it, it was a worthy triumph. But keeping the lights on was the emergency; it was never the whole job. The whole job is what this edition is about. South Africa still generates about three quarters of its electricity by burning coal, in an economy that has to decarbonise while growing, employing people and not abandoning the towns that coal built. That is a harder problem than a power shortage or maintenance, but it is also a far more interesting one. Here is something worth saying, though: we are not badly placed. South Africa is one of the five best regions on Earth for solar. Households and businesses have already installed more than 5GW of rooftop solar, largely out of irritation with the grid. That impatience is an asset.