The lights may be off, but “crisis mode” is definitely switched on in South Africa. Despite a national state of disaster and a new minister of electricity, scheduled power outages, known as load-shedding, continue to heavily impact citizens.
Five years ago today, a power outage blanketed parts of North America. The outage highlighted the fragility of our electricity system. And with energy demands rising, the economy in a slump and global warming fears taking center stage, ‘smart grid’ technologies could provide solutions.