Switching off South Africa's geysers could save up to four stages of load-shedding — Ramokgopa

[j4ck455]

“[That is] just by switching off geysers…it’s going to help us and in that way we are going to go to lower stages of load shedding.”

Hello minister Dumbass, you already switch off a crapton of geyers (and everything else) every day, and you still do loadshitting, so go rotate your dumbass on a prickly cactus.

 

[CeeBee]

Start chopping off cable thieves hands then we can turn the lights off during the day.

yeah i heard we need to keep the streetlights on so we can see when cable being stolen....
there has to be a less retarded way to manage this. it just sounds like bad/incompetent management of the situation
keeping the street lights on is certainly not stopping the cable theft.

i guess 1 option is to replace the streetlights with solar powered LED lights.... i can imagine a huge cost... but it will take them off the grid, and eventually.... the cost will be recovered from electricity saving no?

 

[jetlee]

In a healthy economy, a demand is met by supply at an acceptable cost, and a trade is completed. If there is no demand, then the economic benefit of the item is zero. If the demand is high and supply is low, then this is managed by the law of supply and demand and the price must go up. This is economics 101.

For the government to reduce demand, all they need to do, is escalate the price, but this only works in a competitive market, otherwise, its just a fancy way to "pay more tax". So if the minister of electricity, Eskom and the ANC want to reduce demand, the correct economic answer is not to ask people to turn off geysers, the answer is to raise the price of electricity and force people to turn off geysers or "pay more tax".

This will ultimately lead to the demise of the economy and the demise of the ANC simultaneously, as the knock to average joe and poor joe's cost of living, becomes essentially unbearable. The only fix to this broken relationship, is to deregulate and privatise, get out of the power production game and allow capitalism to provide, which we all know the ANC will not do, because that doesnt win commie votes.

The ANC has no more cards while trying to "eat" as much as they can before the game is up. This "do us a favour and turn off your geyser" is just a weak attempt at acting like they have a plan.

 

[wingnut771]

yeah i heard we need to keep the streetlights on so we can see when cable being stolen....
there has to be a less retarded way to manage this. it just sounds like bad/incompetent management of the situation
keeping the street lights on is certainly not stopping the cable theft.

i guess 1 option is to replace the streetlights with solar powered LED lights.... i can imagine a huge cost... but it will take them off the grid, and eventually.... the cost will be recovered from electricity saving no?

It's not to see when its stolen, it's to prevent them being stolen in the first place as it's very risky to cut live wires.

It's not stopping it because there is loadshitting, a cable thief's wet dream as they just have to wait for the power to be turned off then snip snip.

Most street lights are already led afaik.

 

[Oldfut]

I hope this expensive and unfunny clown stops calling himself an "engineer" as he is giving engineers an even worse name. I think he said he was a civil engineer of some sort so he has a partial excuse for not having paid attention during the electricity lectures and maybe it was from a bush college that leaves out that portion not needed to be a sivil ingineer. But eish, at least google or try a claculator.

 

[wingnut771]

I hope this expensive and unfunny clown stops calling himself an "engineer" as he is giving engineers an even worse name. I think he said he was a civil engineer of some sort so he has a partial excuse for not having paid attention during the electricity lectures and maybe it was from a bush college that leaves out that portion not needed to be a sivil ingineer. But eish, at least google or try a claculator.

I wonder if he's built anything as a civil engineer?

 

[Mike Angelo]

I wonder if he's built anything as a civil engineer?

He would have been more useful at the dept of edukashin to design and build toilets to replace the pit toilets at schools, but yeah that's not important enough.

 

[CeeBee]

It's not to see when its stolen, it's to prevent them being stolen in the first place as it's very risky to cut live wires.

It's not stopping it because there is loadshitting, a cable thief's wet dream as they just have to wait for the power to be turned off then snip snip.

Most street lights are already led afaik.

yeah, but the lights can be off during the day, even with the cables being live still... it should be off at the light bulb area with a dimmer switch to only come on at dark... many areas are like this.
i guess the problem here is stock management and maintenance of the dimmer switches.... and our councils are not big on maintenance as is.

in this country with our entitlement brigade its wonder we dont have people suing and unhappiness about the risk and damage to cable thieves when they try to steel live cables and get the odd burn

 

[somnambulist]

I'm not even going to waste my time reading the article.
Either subsidize 70% of homes and provide them with free gas geysers or stfu

Why not make heat pumps, solar & gas geysers VAT free and subsidies manufacturers here in SA that manufacture them... it's a no brainer. The very same could be done with for inverter hvac aircons and gas heaters & stoves and any A+ energy rated efficient electrical appliances. I wonder if he ever thought of the basics of a house holds energy consumption. I understand there's a time scale for changing major appliances within your home but if it's cheap enough and saves you money I'm sure people with go along with it.

 

[wingnut771]

Why not make heat pumps, solar & gas geysers VAT free and subsidies manufacturers here in SA that manufacture them... it's a no brainer. The very same could be done with for inverter hvac aircons and gas heaters & stoves and any A+ energy rated efficient electrical appliances. I wonder if he ever thought of the basics of a house holds energy consumption. I understand there's a time scale for changing major appliances within your home but if it's cheap enough and saves you money I'm sure people with go along with it.

You have to have a brain in the first place to have a "no brainer". Anyway, household consumption is like less than 10% of the demand afaik.

 

[Bliksis]

You have to have a brain in the first place to have a "no brainer". Anyway, household consumption is like less than 10% of the demand afaik.

Yep, and VAT free will probably not see us paying less, but suppliers coining it.

 

[SyntaxError]

Hello! Can I please speak to Dr. Obvious?

 

[Swa]

Reducing demand must surely be part of that strategy, what is an ego trip about that?

No, we have been reducing demand since 2007 and all Eskom has done is match that demand with more breakdowns and failing infrastructure. That is the part you're missing. Any business will always match the demand. Where Eskom is different is they can't keep up and fails to do it reliably but goes for the common denominator with mediocracy.

When to switch off geysers and which lights to use is a 2007 discussion. We are well past that point and should not be entertaining policies that ban CCFLs for using "too much" electricity. No other country is doing so. Our problems are much worse and will continue to get worse if nothing is done. A useless minister as window dressing visiting power stations does nothing. We already know what the problems are and Ted Blom has said exactly the same things but in more detail on national tv. What we need is to get competent engineers in there to determine what can be done if anything.

This is impossible.

It is possible under some weird circumstances where if he turns it off the thermostat gets stuck at too low a temperature and then it overheats causing a higher temperature delta that results in more heat siphoning. Most of the time though it's placebo as it's hard to establish even under controlled conditions if a geyser is using one or two more units but if it is the case the geyser is malfunctioning and needs to be replaced eventually.

It won’t save anything. It still takes the same amount of energy to heat the water.

See above but that's not always true. If someone is using hot water in a way with long enough periods in between where it cools sufficiently or even stays cold for a few days the heat siphoning is less so less energy is used to keep it warm. The cases where this happens are only a few out of hundreds though so not something a utility should worry about as it won't have much of an impact. It's more about personal savings that we did so.

We desperately need a time of day tariff which will result in users changing their electricity use pattern. The minister was meant to say switch off your geyser during peak demand, early morning and early evening. I don't think the minister wants us to have cold showers for the next ten to twenty years. The time it takes to build a power station in Africa.

Time of day makes sense where you need to cater for peak demand as it reduces the infrastructure required and eliminates idle time. In Eskom's case though they already have no idle time and are now running at near full capacity permanently so you're just shifting the load to the times they're trying to save the most.

So, I can water my lawn 24/7 as long as I pay for it ?

Water is a scarce resource where electricity isn't but rather a scalable one. With that said we don't have a water problem but another infrastructure one. Most of our dams are overflowing but we can't get it to parts that need it. Also something like 60% of water "usage" never reach consumers so that's not where the issue is. It shouldn't matter if you use water 24/7 and can pay for it but as usual the warnings were ignored.

"It is Eskom's responsibility to meet that demand."

So we assume - according to EL Presedente, They actually dont have to provide SA a single mW...there's no Constitutional mandate for it, as there is on DWS to provide water to the country.

SA has been fleeced for decades by a regime that actually has very little responsibility , takes very little accountability but costs a fortune to keep in place.

The regime's main objective is ONLY to stay in place at ANY COST to TAX PAYERS and consumers...in order to ensure perpetuation of more of the same.

Unlike the Reserve Bank there's nothing in the constitution about Eskom or supplying electricity. They should just not stand in the way of self provision.

Start chopping off cable thieves hands then we can turn the lights off during the day.

So they only steal those cables? It's firstly hard to figure out which ones they are and done by testing them when they're off. Secondly where we are some are on during the day and some off so it's clearly not done to deter thieves but due to bad workmanship connecting them to the general supply.

 

[itareanlnotani]

Something I wrote about ripple control a decade ago - https://goingsolar.co.za/2013/06/19...e-control-and-load-shedding-in-power-systems/

 

[biena]

More info on this subsidy?

Unfortunately, as of April 30th 2015, Eskom Cancelled the Solar Water Heating Rebate Programme.

 

[Paulsie]

No, there is good demand and there is bad demand, what's next, leaving your tap on watering the lawn all weekend is sign of a functioning economy?

Nice dychotomy.
Water is a resource while electricity is generated.
ESKOMs business is to generate electricity. And when they do not produce and sell enough to cover overheads, they run into debt. And increase prices exponentially.

 

[Paulsie]

A business that produce and employs people using more electricity is not the same as you switching everything on just for the fun of it because you will pay for it, do you understand that?

I hope you often go hungry to help eliminate shortage of food and starvation in Africa.

 

[leon.davibe]

Brilliant stuff bring back 1970s tech with ripple control…
Problem is we have 24hr loadshedding and shortages so when exactly will my geyser then get an opportunity to work in a 24hr cycle?

Once a week when they suspend it for 6hrs /jk

 

[leon.davibe]

Don't get me wrong. I feel we should all be doing what we can to reduce usage. At the very least to help those few dedicated employees left at Eskom toiling away to keep the lights on. I just keep seeing language being used, by Eskom and others, that demonises demand.

"Due to increased demand Eskom has had to implement loadshedding stage X". No, due to Eskom's inability to meet that demand, they've had to implement loadshedding.

There should be no confusion here. Usage isn't the problem. The people of South Africa are not to blame here. The ability to supply is to blame. Eskom and the government are to blame. Modern life and a growing economy will always result in increased demand. It is Eskom's responsibility to meet that demand.

I get the notion

The problem is some aim for the bar

So by lowering the bar they aim for it

So they say loot more we don't actually need to get this one online again soon

ie imo actually just using what you need to when you need to
Is what we need to do

If that highlights the problem so be it

We can't be lowering the bar all the time

Sure if we constantly have new power stations being built and coming online

We can say ok we just need to curb a little while till this one comes online

If the economy/population grew a bit more than anticipated

Is there any new power generation in the pipeline? With decent capacity?

Not some small ipp project

So what exactly is the plan
Shrink the economy * % every year until we don't load shed ?

 

[Forum Reader]

If anything, I think fewer people are inclined to put timers on their geysers these days with all the load shedding. What if there is load shedding in the 2hrs your geyser is scheduled to be switched on? You wake up and have cold water the next morning.