[imagesource:stocksnap.io]

Another year, another opportunity to turn off the power.

Or at least that’s how Eskom sees it. This past year really could have been one of the worst for our electricity grid and candle supply.

Popular load-shedding stage and schedule tracking app EskomSePush (ESP) has released a Load-Shedding Wrap for 2023. You know mos, a Saffa adapts, and ESP’s feature is a case in point, taking the feature similar to music and video streaming services’ ‘Year in Review’ reports and turning it into a lekker little summary of some of the key data regarding the rotational power cuts in 2023.

While it’s hilarious in a ‘look at us bonding over our shared misery’ way, it is also kind of shocking.

Loadshedding 2023 wrapped! 💥 pic.twitter.com/It3HiuC6UA

— EskomSePush (ESP) (@EskomSePush) December 13, 2023

Let’s have a closer look, shall we?

Load-shedding was so hectic this year that it was active 82% of the time. That means we were only spared for 18% of the year. I would understand if you don’t let that sink in and rather bury your head in the sand.

Then, the data shows that South Africa experienced 407,746 minutes of no power – and as SA TikToker Zethu pointed out in her review of ESP’s Wrap (even though she got the number wrong), we know that there are 525,600 minutes in a year because of that famous song from the RENT musical.

Yikes, Eskom. Thanks for squandering all those “moments so dear”.

When it came to the stages, we sat in the high load-shedding stages for waaaay too many days:

Nee, man.

The stages per month shed light on how little light we had per month, with January to May being bad, but really, most of the year was pretty loaded:

You can head over to your app to find out what load-shedding looked like in your area.

[source:mybroadband]