Namibia has joined the growing list of southern African countries where power outages have affected telecom networks and services.
Last week it was reported that Namibian communications service provers had been experiencing significant interruptions due to a limited electricity supply.
Windhoek, the capital, was hit the worst by the energy crisis. For example MTC reported a power loss on Wednesday evening in Windhoek, where its key systems serving the rest of the country are based. Telecom Namibia also reported disruptions during the week.
Although the process of service restoration has been described as ongoing, surges in demand have apparently affected the expected automatic services restoration.
Namibia is not alone. A number of southern African countries have struggled to satisfy energy demand due to supply constraints.
The interdependence of regional power supply has also led to problems. For example, while it may not have been a major factor in last week’s issues, Zambia’s decision a month ago to recall 100 megawatts (MW) of electricity from the export market certainly raised concerns about Namibia’s energy supply. And of course, as we reported last week, Zambia has had power supply problems of its own.
As has South Africa. The UK’s Financial Times news service has reported that South African power utility Eskom has warned that a failure by South African municipalities to pay billions of rand owed to the state-owned power utility is thwarting its recovery efforts just as it is close to ending a decade of blackouts that have hit growth and scared away foreign investors.
Of course state power providers are not the only option. As we noted in March, Teraco, Africa’s largest interconnection hub and vendor-neutral data centre provider, is planning the construction of a 120MW utility-scale solar PV energy facility in the Free State province of South Africa.
In addition, a year ago, Vodacom signed a virtual wheeling agreement with state-owned power supplier Eskom that will enable the operator to secure independent power producers (IPPs) under the same terms and conditions as those that underpin its agreement with Eskom.
