Not to be insensitive, but for a South African this is a kind of LOL moment. We have had power outages mess with experiments and universities since at least the

Not to be insensitive, but for a South African this is a kind of LOL moment. We have had power outages mess with experiments and universities since at least the early 2000's. That of course and the arson that burned down auditoriums. But in terms of experiments, if you want your MSc or PhD then you better make sure that you can go a couple of days without power to the grid. If you are in a rural area, especially a previously "white" area as the pre-1994 NP government called it, then you need to have your own > 5000 L water tank. The town where I went to primary school had 9 days without water or electricity a year or two ago. Probably half of the town (it's a small town though) never have water between 9PM and the next morning since they simply turn of the pumps (whether there is electricity or not). The government officials also steal water to go sell for $1 per 100 L to areas where there is no running water. You can think of it as a kind of osmosis between previously affluent areas and areas that had been mud huts. If you think of it that way it doesn't sound that bad, actually, but I think the net position is not the issue, the real issue to me is the corruption and apathy within the government and the rate of improvement. Africa should be ahead of China in economic growth if you look at the youth percentage and potentially massive workforce. If you want to completely redesign an entire country's power grid and make it 100% solar/wind, then South Africa is the perfect candidate. That is if you could forget about politics for a moment.