Almost 97% of power faults in the City of Johannesburg are now repaired within 24 hours.
The power goes out just after breakfast, but at least you’ve had your coffee. At first, it's more irritating than alarming. After all, City Power's latest performance figures show things are getting better.
The number of unplanned outages has fallen by about a fifth compared with the previous quarter, while the average time customers spend without electricity has dropped from just over 24 hours to around 14. Almost 97% of faults are now repaired within 24 hours.
For a city that has become accustomed to prolonged outages, those are welcome signs of progress. But they also raise an obvious question: What does 14 hours without electricity actually look like?
For many Johannesburg households, it is long enough to discover that the expensive backup systems bought during the load-shedding years were never designed for outages that stretch through most of the day.
