Frequent rolling blackouts across the country expose a power-delivery model that critics say is obsolete and blocks more efficient competitors.

JOHANNESBURG – THE FEW weeks leading up to Christmas are the best time for business in South Africa's beauty industry. With the long summer vacation and festivities ahead, "Everyone wants their nails done," says Maggie Mahlangu, who works at Sorbet Nail Bar in Epsom Downs, Johannesburg. It usually means extra income for Mahlangu to buy Christmas presents for her family.

But last December, she had to do away with some of the surprises she had planned to buy for her loved ones. Instead, she struggled just to meet her basic bills. "I would say I took home 30% less commission," she says, sitting behind the shop's neon light-drenched welcome desk. The reason had nothing to do with customer interest or the business itself, but a euphemistically coined term that belies the crisis it represents: load-shedding.

Load-shedding is the planned interruption of electricity service that has caused the scheduled, rolling blackouts across South Africa during the past several years. When load-shedding hits, homes and businesses are plunged into darkness for periods of anywhere between 150 minutes and eight hours, several times a week. The government program is intended to avoid a country-wide blackout by providing relief to the overall power grid.

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