Following announcements by Eskom that the power utility would be implementing stage 6 load-shedding and ZESA’s own announcement that they would be implementing stage 2 load-shedding and people should expect to lose power beyond the schedule there was a lot of speculation on social media with some saying that means some areas would lose power for at least 24 hours.

Even some respectable people were repeating this falsehood. It shows how ignorant some people are when it comes to how electricity demand actually works. In fact, Zimbabwe has been known to export electricity even as we have load-shedding. How and why you may ask? Well, the demand for power falls significantly at night.

Although the South Africans are facing challenges in the power sector they have continued to supply us with power.
… should there be challenges in that area I am sure our South Africa brothers and sisters will communicate that to us that they are unable (to continue supplying power) but as of now we have not received such communication and we are continuing to receiving power in terms of the undertakings that were made in our contract with them.
Fortune Chasi on the issue

In fact, if you are having 24-hour powercuts it’s in all probability a fault of some sort. We are all entitled to our pathetic 6 hours of electricity a day thanks to off-peak supply from Eskom and Mozambique which augment our ever-dwindling supply of power.