South Africa power outages may have reduced growth by 3.2 percentage points

South Africa’s energy crisis may have reduced the nation’s economic growth rate by as much as 3.2 percentage points last year and is likely to dampen output until at least early 2024, according to the central bank. Eskom frequently implements loadshedding to protect the grid from collapse as the State-owned utility’s aging and poorly maintained plants can’t meet demand. Regular outages since January have lasted as long as 12 hours a day.