Most of you’ve probably been plunged into darkness more than once this week due to load shedding occurring in your area. Cold food, unfinished homework assignments and a silent television is no joke! To understand what’s happening, let’s take a peek at how South Africa generates and transmits electricity…

Unlike air or water that can be harvested from nature, electricity must be ‘manufactured’. Eskom produces about 34 000 megawatts electricity to meet the current demand by using our supply of low-quality coal in Mpumalanga and the Northern Province.

In the power stations, coal is moved on conveyor belts, crushed into fine powder and burned under controlled conditions in boilers to produce high pressure steam. The steam then drives turbines that generate the electricity while the smoke from the boiler is filtered to remove unwanted emissions. The ash remnants is returned to the ground and isolated in long-term storage.

Now that the electricity has been generated, Eskom needs to transmit it. Stay tuned for more…