Aging electricity infrastructure ticking time bomb?

[Sly21C]

I've read a couple of articles about the aging electricity distribution infrastructure in this country. I've read about power outages in some parts and this includes my girlfriend's area whereby there was no electricity for 4 days, it only came back today. So today I read an article about the average lifespan of the electricity infrastructure to be about 30 years and that most of them have reached their lifespan. Is there a plan from Eskom to build new infrastructure? With an ever increasing population and more burden placed on the distribution network which results in little maintenance occurring as some areas need to have their electricity shut down for maintenance, what is the long term plan for addressing this ticking time bomb? Did Manuel's MPC's diagnostic report take the electricity issue to account? What can a normal South African do to save themselves from the this inevitable time bomb? Solar panels?

 

[psheldon]

You gotta be kidding! You show me ANY infrastructure that is being correctly maintained. Aircraft? oooo I reckon they might be a close number one to ......... um ...........
to......

See, when a fuse blows we fix it, if it blows again we fix it again until a sub-station blows up then we fix that AFTER removing the bodies. maintenance costs MONEY which must be spent on RDP houses.

The maintenance of this country is a joke.

 

[Other Pineapple Smurf]

Solar panels are not worth it. You need to invest a small fortune into batteries and the correct equipment and then have to maintain these as well. Our company did this and wasted a small fortune on such a setup even though we used on of the best in the industry to assist us.

Only option is to get one of the new low noise generators that have a remote switch. Welcome to Africa.

 

[noxibox]

Most countries have allowed their infrastructure, like water, electricity and roads to reach a dismal state before really setting to fixing things. So it's not really an issue of whether it's been allowed to go relatively unmaintained for a long time, but whether decisive corrective steps are taken when it actually starts to fall apart. In the case of a place like the US and UK they waited until things started to collapse.

 

[genetic]

You gotta be kidding! You show me ANY infrastructure that is being correctly maintained. Aircraft? oooo I reckon they might be a close number one to ......... um ...........
to......

See, when a fuse blows we fix it, if it blows again we fix it again until a sub-station blows up then we fix that AFTER removing the bodies. maintenance costs MONEY which must be spent on RDP houses.

The maintenance of this country is a joke.

Easy there tiger...

The City of Cape Town plans to invest over half a billion rand in the Metropole’s electricity network in the coming financial year.

http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/Pages/CityinvestsR538millioninupgradingelectricitynetwork.aspx

(Johannesburg) City Power has been allocated R8,8bn for the upgrading and continuing maintenance of ageing infrastructure networks

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=109559


They should have started these massive infrastructure investments over a decade back when generation capacity was above demand! That is why we sit with the sh*t we have today.

 

[bekdik]

The money that should have been spent on maintenance has been removed from companies such as Eskom & Telkom as dividends and bonuses from profits artificially created by cutting down work force and withholding maintenance.

 

[orin76]

I've read a couple of articles about the aging electricity distribution infrastructure in this country. I've read about power outages in some parts and this includes my girlfriend's area whereby there was no electricity for 4 days, it only came back today. So today I read an article about the average lifespan of the electricity infrastructure to be about 30 years and that most of them have reached their lifespan. Is there a plan from Eskom to build new infrastructure? With an ever increasing population and more burden placed on the distribution network which results in little maintenance occurring as some areas need to have their electricity shut down for maintenance, what is the long term plan for addressing this ticking time bomb? Did Manuel's MPC's diagnostic report take the electricity issue to account? What can a normal South African do to save themselves from the this inevitable time bomb? Solar panels?

Eskom went through a period of neglecting maintenance and this was a big contributor (though not the only one) to the the blackouts we had in 2008. Nowadays Eskom maintenance, while not great, is mostly adequate. The municipalities on the other hand, have not yet received their maintenance wake-up calls. If you have power issues and you're not a direct Eskom customer your issue is probably a municipal one. Eskom has its faults, but municipalities like passing the blame for a lot of their own shortcoming to Eskom.

 

[DanH]

The money that should have been spent on maintenance has been removed from companies such as Eskom & Telkom as dividends and bonuses from profits artificially created by cutting down work force and withholding maintenance.

I know of a guy with only a std6 and no other training, that works for Eskom as a bakkie driver for the last 10years. Everybody at Eskom gets the same % of their salary as a bonus.
His 2009 end of year bonus: R58 000.