On Friday the government release their energy crisis plan. There are quite a few interesting things in there, and I've tried to highlight the immediate plans (and issues) in my latest blog post.

In the medium and long term Eskom is continuing to expand their capacity, but in the short term drastic measures need to be taken to keep the economy supplied with electricity. Right now Eskom needs to release about 3000MW of capacity to provide enough "breathing room." That is a large chunk of power....although you might be surprised at how easily it can be obtained.

There is a single viable option to solve this crisis in the short term, and that is power conservation. The government and Eskom have identified this and have the following short term goals...

Read the full post on The Art of Engineering
Apparently by tomorrow we will have the proposed amendments to the Electricity Regulation Act detailing the quota system, penalties and incentives.

Overall I think the plan is quite a reasonable one. Now it just requires action by each individual, as well as Eskom and the government. I believe a strong marketing campaign to change social norms is where we have to start.