Geographies of Unreliable Power: Energy Insecurity and Everyday Life in a South African Informal Settlement

ABSTRACT Unreliable energy infrastructure is a defining yet understudied dimension of everyday precarity in informal settlements. This paper examines how infrastructural unreliability shapes lived experiences of energy insecurity in Qandu Qandu, a largely off‐grid informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa. Drawing on in‐depth qualitative research, we analyse how residents navigate hybrid energy configurations comprising illegal grid connections, solar mini‐grids and combustible fuels. We extend recent work on off‐gridding by demonstrating that energy insecurity in informal urban contexts is structured not only by access, but by the intersecting qualities of reliability, affordability, safety and the emotional burdens produced by unstable infrastructures. Findings show that unreliability is pervasive, with weather‐related disruptions, equipment failures and unpredictable informal markets generating layered insecurities that shape daily routines and heighten vulnerability. Residents respond through energy stacking, informal repair networks and mutual aid, exhibiting infrastructural agency while facing significant limits to adaptation. Unreliable energy services also produce acute mental and emotional strain, including anxiety, stress and health risks related to chronic illness management. We argue that these lived experiences reveal how off‐gridding processes are embedded in structural inequalities and express forms of infrastructural citizenship. Addressing energy insecurity therefore requires community‐centred, reliability‐focused approaches to urban energy planning and governance.