With its back seemingly against the wall, power utility Eskom agreed to unions' demands on the reinstatement of some conditions of employment in addition to the 7% salary increase offer it tabled.
Some blame a quasi-free-market in electricity for the collapse of the electrical grid in Texas, during a winter snow storm, mid-February, in which temperatures hovered at 0°F (or -18°C). The same people finger deregulation and isolation from the national and neighboring grids.
Opposing opinion has it that an excessive reliance on renewable energy sources, like wind turbines, was the culprit in a grid collapse that saw 40 percent of the power supply fail within hours of the storm, indirectly causing the death of about 60 Texans.
All agree that the oil-and-gas state enjoys both cheap natural gas and abundant wind power and that its