Another morning without power for part of Skopje. EVN has announced a five-hour outage in parts of the Karposh municipality, from 09:00 to 14:00, due to planned technical work on the electricity distribution network.

The cut will hit customers on "Angel Dinev" Street near the "Dimo Hadzi Dimov" primary school, part of "Mramorec" Street, and part of "Esperanto". The reason, as usual, is "planned technical work" - a phrase residents hear so often they already know the rhythm of it.

Maintenance outages are necessary, nobody disputes that. The problem is the frequency, and how far in advance they are announced. For a household with a small child, for someone who works from home, or for a small shop with fridges full of stock, five hours without power is no trifle - it's a lost day or spoiled goods.

The question that rarely gets an answer is why, in the 21st century, the grid still demands cuts this frequent and this long. Is this genuine modernisation that will finally reduce the outages, or eternal "maintenance" that keeps repeating on the same streets? The residents of Karposh, for today at least, have only one solution - fill the thermos before nine.