Eskom: South Africa's fallen energy giant

rvZA

rvZA

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It was once a source of national pride — an award-winning firm that powered South Africa's mining boom and later brought electricity to black communities left behind by apartheid.


Today, a hundred years after its birth, Eskom has experienced a spectacular fall from grace.

South Africa's energy giant is crippled by debt, beset by corruption scandals and unable to keep the lights on.
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www.news24.com

Eskom: South Africa's fallen energy giant | Business

It was once a source of national pride — an award-winning firm that powered South Africa's mining boom and later brought electricity to black communities left behind by apartheid.
www.news24.com www.news24.com
 
later brought electricity to black communities left behind by apartheid.
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Lol... the fallacy... now I question the article. The whole country, black and white had electricity during apartheid. But only those who paid for it. There were many white people who did not have access to electricity as they could not have afforded it. Many black in locations also had electricity they could.
 
rvZA said:
Lol... the fallacy... now I question the article. The whole country, black and white had electricity during apartheid. But only those who paid for it. There were many white people who did not have access to electricity as they could not have afforded it. Many black in locations also had electricity they could.
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As soon as they start with award winning, it's like okay
 
Eskom was once our national pride, did people have eskom flags and t shirts, was there a national day called eskom day, when did this happen
 
Pak Fa Fui said:
Eskom was once our national pride, did people have eskom flags and t shirts, was there a national day called eskom day, when did this happen
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It's just media harp, before 2008 no one even really cared
 
Lupus said:
As soon as they start with award winning, it's like okay
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Eskom was indeed an award winning electricity supplier, probably the biggest and one of the best in the world back then. But, that is the wave the ANC wants to ride. Apartheid achievements when it suits them.
 
ANC likes to sink everything. Education quality, service delivery, electricity, water.. all crap now.

Well done ANC!
 
Another shining example of the decolonization of South Africa under ANC rule.
 
rvZA said:
Eskom was indeed an award winning electricity supplier, probably the biggest and one of the best in the world back then. But, that is the wave the ANC wants to ride. Apartheid achievements when it suits them.
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It won once in 2001, power company of the year, once 22 years ago.
Also involved in embezzlement in the 1985
Look the ANC has really stuffed things up, but Eskom hasn't been great ever, it was playing catch up in the 70s and 80s, didn't supply a large portion of the country until the late 2000s.
 
Lupus said:
It won once in 2001, power company of the year, once 22 years ago.
Also involved in embezzlement in the 1985
Look the ANC has really stuffed things up, but Eskom hasn't been great ever, it was playing catch up in the 70s and 80s, didn't supply a large portion of the country until the late 2000s.
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Yeah, no look. I remember growing up in the 60's and early 70's in big towns and neighbourhoods, yet we still had to rely on wood-burning ovens in certain areas. But yeah, in the 20 odd-years it takes them to build a power plant they surely did make huge progress in supplying electricity to most big areas across the country. By the 80's virtually all locations had electricity as this was needed by government too back at the time due to obvious reasons. By 1990 there was not a single big location that did not have electricity, neither any neighbourhood in and around any big town.
 
rvZA said:
Yeah, no look. I remember growing up in the 60's and early 70's in big towns and neighbourhoods, yet we still had to rely on wood-burning ovens in certain areas. But yeah, in the 20 odd-years it takes them to build a power plant they surely did make huge progress in supplying electricity to most big areas across the country. By the 80's virtually all locations had electricity as this was needed by government too back at the time due to obvious reasons. By 1990 there was not a single big location that did not have electricity, neither any neighbourhood in and around any big town.
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Yet by 1994 they had just only electrified 50% of the country, that was 71 years after being founded. Should have never gone centralised and municipalities should've remained in control of the grid and power stations
 
Pak Fa Fui said:
Eskom was once our national pride, did people have eskom flags and t shirts, was there a national day called eskom day, when did this happen
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I have a couple of Eskom key rings, an Eskom jacket and T-Shirt.

It was actually a great company pre-2000 or so at least.

I don't remember an Eskom day, but they did do a staff xmas party where the kids got presents. It was pretty cool.
People were proud of working there.
 
Lupus said:
Yet by 1994 they had just only electrified 50% of the country, that was 71 years after being founded. Should have never gone centralised and municipalities should've remained in control of the grid and power stations
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The majority of the South African population at the time lived inside and around towns and cities. They were all fully electrified already from the 60's. I do, however, agree that farmlands and far off areas did not have electricity by that time and 90% of those land did also not even need it. We had a family of farmers in the 80's on the West Coast and Northern Cape. None of their farms had electricity in the 80's. So, in my opinion, the majority of the population of people had access to power. I know, I grew up with it in the late 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's - never had any shortages as long as we paid - and are now losing it again.
 
Lupus said:
It won once in 2001, power company of the year, once 22 years ago.
Also involved in embezzlement in the 1985
Look the ANC has really stuffed things up, but Eskom hasn't been great ever, it was playing catch up in the 70s and 80s, didn't supply a large portion of the country until the late 2000s.
Click to expand...

So it was indeed award-winning.. Lol

It also powers like 30% of the whole continent, couldn't be arsed about exact figures go look it up. Sounds pretty great to me considering there are like 50 countries in Africa.

Also, when I grew up we still had some untarred roads, coal stoves and wind-up telephones (Benoni, Delmas) so don't compare today's infrastructure matrix to a time it was still in process of being distributed.
 
grok said:
So it was indeed award-winning.. Lol

It also powers like 30% of the whole continent, couldn't be arsed about exact figures go look it up. Sounds pretty great to me considering there are like 50 countries in Africa.

Also, when I grew up we still had some untarred roads, coal stoves and wind-up telephones (Benoni, Delmas) so don't compare today's infrastructure matrix to a time it was still in process of being distributed.
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Bwahahaha, powers 30% of the continent, firstly there is Eskom Uganda a subsidiary up in the east that powers parts there, its not like our SA infrastructure is powering 30% of the continent. You know how much HV infrastructure costs?
Secondly even at the diminished generation capacity are the 2nd largest in Africa, Egypt being the largest, in fact we could probably power 45% or more of Africa if we didn't power ourselves.
But considering we use and require about the same amount of power that most of Africa uses, how praytell can we power 30% of the continent when we can't power ourselves?
We already pulling in 1600MW from Mozambique and what we may send to our neighbours is half a stage, though considering how little they actually use and generate themselves would probably be less then Johannesburg.
We get it Eskom is screwed, but it wasn't this great super entity, it was a power provider that for a great portion of its life didn't have to supply a large part of the population.
The ANC has screwed it up by not actually expanding it when they should have and used it for their own trough, if they had done expansions and refurbs we'd be fine.
But we still wouldn't be supplying 30% of the continent, not any longer anyway.
 
Lupus said:
Bwahahaha, powers 30% of the continent, firstly there is Eskom Uganda a subsidiary up in the east that powers parts there, its not like our SA infrastructure is powering 30% of the continent. You know how much HV infrastructure costs?
Secondly even at the diminished generation capacity are the 2nd largest in Africa, Egypt being the largest, in fact we could probably power 45% or more of Africa if we didn't power ourselves.
But considering we use and require about the same amount of power that most of Africa uses, how praytell can we power 30% of the continent when we can't power ourselves?
We already pulling in 1600MW from Mozambique and what we may send to our neighbours is half a stage, though considering how little they actually use and generate themselves would probably be less then Johannesburg.
We get it Eskom is screwed, but it wasn't this great super entity, it was a power provider that for a great portion of its life didn't have to supply a large part of the population.
The ANC has screwed it up by not actually expanding it when they should have and used it for their own trough, if they had done expansions and refurbs we'd be fine.
But we still wouldn't be supplying 30% of the continent, not any longer anyway.
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If you are so sure then take it up with these fellows I was quoting from..

No, Eskom doesn’t generate 45% of electricity used in Africa​

 
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