It’s another winter of discontent, as Eskom once again resorts to regular power cuts to stabilise its unreliable system. Maddeningly, South Africa would probably be exiting its 13-year load-shedding crisis had it simply proceeded with its yearly procurement of new capacity from independent power producers, a process that was halted in 2015 after Eskom illegally refused to sign new contracts. Procurement has since resumed, but needs to be coupled with new regulations to unlock distributed generation if the prevailing 5 000-MW gap is to be plugged.