There is probably no socio-economic issue in the past four decades or so that has either impacted our society or on public discourse as the reliability (or lack thereof) of our national electricity system. At a very basic level it has become a national provocation, the periodic denial of power rendering consumers numb with rage and helplessness to respond to the sudden removal of the ability to perform certain basic functions, beginning with routine domestic chores.
There is, as well the much broader more profound frustration as the unreliability of power supply intrudes on the national production process, in offices and to far greater effect in places like hospitals where the weak and vulnerable are discommoded and in what one might call the productive sphere, factories and other centres of production where the vicissitudes of power supply play an absolutely vital role in the ultimate economic outcome.
So that when, over time, you add damaged appliances, storage-related compromises that have a bearing on food spoilage, damage to costly machinery, an increasing feeling of misery and frustration arising out of unpredictable power surges that retarded production processes, resulting in loss of income and damage to export markets, you can easily drift into a condition of despair. Add to all this what in numerous instances has been the appreciable costs associated with securing power supply through means outside of the national electricity grid and all of this has been pretty tough to bear.
