With the power shortage that we have today, it is easy to fall into the blame game with the government, current and prior, for all the mistakes they made with regards to the dismal power situation. The situation has several facets, from a desire to keep status quo in order to keep the masses in misery and avoid focusing on real issues of corruption and mismanagement, to downright poor planning and abject governance added to a lack of foresight. I however, digress.

Consider for a moment that perhaps along with the government, we as individuals are to be blamed as well. And that blame goes right across all strata of society, though the burden of it does fall on the educated and well to do.

In most of our larger cities, most middle class families have become reliant on UPS back-up systems for when power goes. Makes sense doesn’t it, power goes but yours doesn’t. Brilliant! Till the system of course has to be charged again, en masse load shedding means everyone’s UPS kicks in at the same time, this of course in turn means they get drained together, and when electrical supply resumes, they all start to charge together. Just imagine the massive drain those UPS are on our electrical grid. What if, as individuals, we charged those UPS on solar power instead of relying on the grid for energy? It’s a small step, but collectively it makes a difference. Full story