Many parts of South Africa are running out of electricity

Many parts of South Africa are running out of electricity. Just a few days after the announcement of a German investment package to support the South African exit from coal-fired power generation, the Cape state is groaning under nationwide power cuts. To prevent a nationwide blackout, the state energy supplier Eskom announced on Sunday that it would have to take entire regions off the grid for the entire week. It justified this with an overload of the network. A total of 17,437 megawatts (MW) of power was missing due to failures - plus the failure of 4,361 MW due to planned maintenance work. In addition, there is too little fuel for the replacement diesel generators. Despite the global struggle to reduce CO2 emissions in order to protect the climate, South Africa, with its rich coal reserves, continues to rely on around 80 percent of its obsolete coal-fired power plants, which are increasingly prone to failure, to generate energy. At the World Climate Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, representatives of the German government declared that they wanted to support the country in the transition to clean energy sources. The 700 million euros promised by Germany are part of a new energy partnership with South Africa, which Great Britain, the USA, France and the EU have also joined. A total of 8.5 billion US dollars (about 7.36 billion euros) in support is planned for the next five years, a large part of it in the form of loans. The partners also want to mobilize private funds and World Bank funds to promote the use of new clean technologies, including "green hydrogen", in South Africa. The partnership is also intended to support the creation of new jobs in these areas.