Another Eskom Blackout website launched

[ebudae]

We went from OK in December (heck - even 15 December still) to all-hell breaking loose in January.

I don't want to get into this because like I said, there ios a problem that needs solving. However, has it occured to you that all things just start one particularly uneventful day.

I.e whether now or later, eventually Eskom would have to start the load shedding. And whenever is it is, the month before would have been fine yet suddenly there's a problem.

Things were not fine in November and December. The warnings signs were there two year sago when we had that fiasco with one of the generators at Eskom going offline. The fact that they could not cope then was already a sign taht things were awry.

 

[Moederloos]

I
I.e whether now or later, eventually Eskom would have to start the load shedding. And whenever is it is, the month before would have been fine yet suddenly there's a problem.

Things were not fine in November and December. The warnings signs were there two year sago when we had that fiasco with one of the generators at Eskom going offline. The fact that they could not cope then was already a sign taht things were awry.

Yes - but not from "nothing" to "Stage 2" overnight.
I would expect it to go from "nothing" to once or twice a week. Not 3-5 times a DAY.

Still do not buy the manure they are feeding us.

 

[CathJ]

Do similar at home; get everyone into the habit of not leaving lights on unnecessarily (and generally thinking about their electricity usage - it comes naturally to me because I was raised like this even in the days of reliable electricity).

Simple one, replace all possible incandescents with energy-saving bulbs.

In both office and home, use smaller lamps where possible to light localised areas instead of a whole room (e.g. an 11W bedside should do while reading in bed).

I realise that we do need to become more economical with electricity, even without this whole Eskom business. But really, are we at the point where you have to huddle next to a lamp in a dark room in a dark house?

That is seriously impacting quality of living.

 

[Moederloos]

I realise that we do need to become more economical with electricity, even without this whole Eskom business. But really, are we at the point where you have to huddle next to a lamp in a dark room in a dark house?

That is seriously impacting quality of living.

Do not save power!
I repeat: DO NOT SAVE POWER.

When the quotas come into play, you will already be saving as much as possible, will not be able to reduce further, and will be penalised.

Think about it.

I am in the position now already - being saving for last 6 months - cannot save more unless I sell my fridge, and now the quotas are going to force me to save more? How?

 

[ebudae]

I realise that we do need to become more economical with electricity, even without this whole Eskom business. But really, are we at the point where you have to huddle next to a lamp in a dark room in a dark house?

That is seriously impacting quality of living.

No one is being asked to huddle in a dark room next to a lamp. You're being asked to use what you need. Does it really impact your quality of life if the TV in the lounge is turned off while you are making dinner in the kitchen, or if the light in the batchroom is off while you are not in there?

If 30m people could each save just 1Kw of electricity during peek periods. That makes a huge impact. And we don't even have to do that much. Just plug out the things you are not using. Keep off the lights in the rooms you are not using.

Do not save power!
I repeat: DO NOT SAVE POWER.

When the quotas come into play, you will already be saving as much as possible, will not be able to reduce further, and will be penalised.

Think about it.

I am in the position now already - being saving for last 6 months - cannot save more unless I sell my fridge, and now the quotas are going to force me to save more? How?

You may have been saving, and it's commendable, but other people have not. Your advice does not help anyone.

We either strive to save that extra 20%, or the problem gets worse until Eskom can get new power plants online.

 

[semiautomatix]

I heard today that many of the large municipalities (Joburg included) used to get most of their energy from their own power stations. Thats until Eskom decided it wanted to be like Telkom and run the show. Apparently Joburg still produces 20% of its electricity needs from the Kelvin power station.

 

[CathJ]

No one is being asked to huddle in a dark room next to a lamp. You're being asked to use what you need. Does it really impact your quality of life if the TV in the lounge is turned off while you are making dinner in the kitchen, or if the light in the batchroom is off while you are not in there?

Yes, the bit I quoted said, only light the part of the room you're using, like use a 11W bulb in a bedside lamp when you're reading in bed.

And yes, it does impact me to have all the lights switched off in the rooms I'm not using. I'm not sitting in a double story house, alone, with all the lights switched off except for the room I'm in. And quite frankly, I shouldn't have to - I use so little electricity, that I feel I should be able to use the little that I do use on the things that I want. There are a lot of power hungry appliances that I don't use.

You may have been saving, and it's commendable, but other people have not. Your advice does not help anyone.

We either strive to save that extra 20%, or the problem gets worse until Eskom can get new power plants online.

What Moederloos says makes sense - in a twisted kind of way, but then if Eskom's going to apply quotas in a twisted way, we have to start thinking that way too.

Look at it this way: Person A uses the bare minimum. He gets told to cut usage by 20%, which means disconnecting his freezer. Person B has a bunch of geysers, aircon, a pool pump, and all that. He gets told to cut usage by 20%, which means he puts the pool pump on a timer. That's not fair.

 

[Moederloos]

You may have been saving, and it's commendable, but other people have not. Your advice does not help anyone.

We either strive to save that extra 20%, or the problem gets worse until Eskom can get new power plants online.

You missed my point entirely.
By saving, I have prejudiced myself when the quotas come into effect.
In other words, people who are saving already, or who now decide to do so, are going to be punished for that.

Edit: Thanks Cathryn - that is indeed what I am saying, I appreciate the different way of saying it.

 

[ebudae]

Hey Catheryn, I get what you're saying. And you are right in that it is unfair. But you live in a double story house with how many light bulbs burning? There is some guy living in a shack or a room with just one light and he is being affected by the power outages just like you are. Isn't that unfair as well.

He is having to suffer so you and I can enjoy the things we feel we are entitled to.

We can blame, refuse and deny until the cows come home. It helps no one.

We're like children crying for more candy after we've already emptied the bag.

 

[Moederloos]

Hey Catheryn, I get what you're saying. And you are right in that it is unfair. But you live in a double story house with how many light bulbs burning? There is some guy living in a shack or a room with just one light and he is being affected by the power outages just like you are. Isn't that unfair as well.

He is having to suffer so you and I can enjoy the things we feel we are entitled to.

We can blame, refuse and deny until the cows come home. It helps no one.

We're like children crying for more candy after we've already emptied the bag.

However, it remains unfair to people like me.
I am very annoyed that my "good intentions" will now come back to bite me in the posterior.
And, so, I will warn others of my mistake - not fair? Who cares - no one is going to care about my predicament.

 

[CathJ]

Hey Catheryn, I get what you're saying. And you are right in that it is unfair. But you live in a double story house with how many light bulbs burning? There is some guy living in a shack or a room with just one light and he is being affected by the power outages just like you are. Isn't that unfair as well.

He is having to suffer so you and I can enjoy the things we feel we are entitled to.

Ah, but now you're getting into a whole other discussion, about social equality in general.

Edit: sorry, re-read that from a different angle, and I see what you're getting at. Yes, that is unfair too. But we're all suffering together, and it's unfair to all of us.

We're like children crying for more candy after we've already emptied the bag.

No, we're like children crying for the candy we've bought after bullies came and stole it out the bag. You're right, in that it doesn't help crying - no-one's going to wave a magic wand and bring our candy back - but we have to fight and make a fuss so that it doesn't happen again.

 

[Turtle]

I don't know if you've looked around, but South Africa is devloping faster than anyone could have imagined.

Drivel - for many years the ANC'S own target growth rate (that they kept repeating loudly over and over, I might add) was 6% - we NEVER achieved that, so for many years, we have been growing much slower than the ANC most certainly DID very well imagine. If the ANC was aiming for 6%, it was blindlingly easy to do the math to see what we would've needed for that. OK sure, maybe that was unrealistic you say - well in fact, if you do the math, we would've still had enough electricity TODAY if they had planned for ONLY 3% growth and expanded according to that, so no matter how you look at it, nobody can have been surprised. (Unless you believe the ANC also thought the country was going to collapse years ago already and planned based on that - either way, it wasn't hard to look at the economic data.) Everybody knew the economy was growing. The math was easy, the predictions were easy, they WERE made, they were known long ago, the ANC has been continually informed every year for the last decade - NOBODY was blindsided. Even Mbeki admitted it, for Pete's sake, now you come on here disagreeing with him.

Those of us who could afford it could install solar panels to heat our geysers, no?

Yes, but it's around R12K, based on the ones I was looking at, not many people can afford that just for a geyser.

Eskom may be to blame, government may be to blame, but there comes a point when blaming will no longer solve the problem. But then again, does it ever?

Blame is absolutely a CRITICAL part of this process, because that is precisely the mechanism how we, as human beings running an industrialised society, make sure these things don't happen again in future. You can't do that without "blame", it's completely friggin impossible. We go to immense pains to figure out exactly who, and what failures, caused the problems, when, and why, and how, and we do so relentlessly and persistently, at great cost --- because if we don't do that, we can never really fix the cause(s), and will just CONTINUE to keep repeating the same mistakes, over and over ... and each time, I suppose, pretending to be blindsided *yet again* "gee, another catastrophe, *nobody* could've predicted". Please, electricity infrastructure is highly complex, but it's some not black magic that nobody can figure out, it's been done right for decades in hundreds of other parts of the world, and when it has failed it's usually for political reasons (e.g. California).

How do you propose we rectify the current situation, if we don't figure out the precise causes, of every contributing failure of the system or, yes, horror of horrors, of individuals within the system? Blame, I'm afraid, is EXACTLY what solves problems, and there is no other way of solving problems.

(*Edit* Just to preempt silly replies that I'm not helping "solve the problem", I should just add, what we are now doing by trying to find ways to reduce our energy usage is NOT "solving the problem", it is "managing the SYMPTOMS of a problem" - that's an extremely important distinction; the two are commonly confused. Both are important goals.)

 

[Moederloos]

A well written post, Turtle - heartily agree.

Just one more point on the solar panel geysers to the quoted poster:
"Those of us who could afford it could install solar panels to heat our geysers, no?"

Well, considering thats about 0.0005% of the population, it aint gonna help jack.

 

[Turtle]

I realise that we do need to become more economical with electricity, even without this whole Eskom business. But really, are we at the point where you have to huddle next to a lamp in a dark room in a dark house?

Oh come on getting a BED LAMP is too much!? Millions of people have them!

 

[CathJ]

Oh come on getting a BED LAMP is too much!? Millions of people have them!

No, getting a bed lamp is not too much. Using ONLY a bed lamp is too much, yes.

 

[ebudae]

Turtle, the people who are to blame for this fiasco have already raised their hands and said they are to blame. Even the president admitted government was to blame. Some people said they were just covering for Eskom.

Plans are in the pipelines to make sure this problem is avoided in future.

But it will be ages until until these plans come to fruition. Till then, do we bitch and moan or do we do damage control and maybe we can all get back to some semblence of normality?

The sooner we cut down on what we use, the sooner the load shedding can stop.

 

[icyrus]

How do you propose we rectify the current situation, if we don't figure out the precise causes, of every contributing failure of the system or, yes, horror of horrors, of individuals within the system? Blame, I'm afraid, is EXACTLY what solves problems, and there is no other way of solving problems.

Good post, just one little quibble: blame is good if its followed by consequences for those who shoulder the blame. As we all know, SA is not very good at consequences for those who have done wrong, especially if they are politically connected.

So in the end we can blame eskom execs and government minister all we like and it won't make a difference as the anc will win the next election with another landslide and the government ministers involved will continue to collect the fat paychecks and embezzle our money on the side.

If anything is clear its that the government has rejected the notion that they are accountable to the public. They believe they are our feudal rulers.

 

[icyrus]

Turtle, the people who are to blame for this fiasco have already raised their hands and said they are to blame. Even the president admitted government was to blame. Some people said they were just covering for Eskom.

Ahh but what consequences have they paid to go along with that blame? That is the critical point.

 

[Moederloos]

Turtle, the people who are to blame for this fiasco have already raised their hands and said they are to blame. Even the president admitted government was to blame. Some people said they were just covering for Eskom.

Plans are in the pipelines to make sure this problem is avoided in future.

But it will be ages until until these plans come to fruition. Till then, do we bitch and moan or do we do damage control and maybe we can all get back to some semblence of normality?

The sooner we cut down on what we use, the sooner the load shedding can stop.

And then, we are told this will have NO AFFECT on our economy - from a man who routinely spends R100K+ on lunch.

No - I do not believe anything will be done.
The ANC will need to prove it to me by delivering.

 

[Turtle]

Turtle, the people who are to blame for this fiasco have already raised their hands and said they are to blame. Even the president admitted government was to blame. Some people said they were just covering for Eskom.

Do we REALLY know the details? If you ask me, Eskom and government are being suspiciously quiet and ambiguous on multiple fronts, and I haven't seen anything like comprehensive investigations and reports with detailed findings presented to the public. Perhaps I missed it, could you send me a link?

The sudden discontinuity between 2007/2008 suggests more than just a steady taking over by demand of supply ... something else happened, perhaps multiple incidents ... but who knows really? I mean seriously, who knows?

Whose heads have rolled so far for this - what are the names, can you tell me? Will this affect the CEO of Eskom's bonus package? His position? Will Alec Erwin be held to account? Will anyone? How many substation failures have we had recently? What kinds of substation failures? What caused them? Which substations? Are the average number of substation failures increasing? How many substations are in danger of failing in future? What impact would that have? Who ran the failed substations? Who knew they were headed for collapse? Who did they tell - which higher-ups knew? Was there a proper response? Where are the maintenance records/logs? Are there proper maintenance audits being conducted at the stations and substations? And skills audits? And accounting audits? What are the time estimates for repair of current damaged substations? Are there even investigations into any of this underway at all, for that matter?

Etc. etc., do we even know ANYTHING, I mean ANYTHING at ALL for Pete's sake, or are we just easily and eagerly placated by a few vague feel-good press releases from Eskom and the government?

A disaster of this magnitude is not something you just wave a few words around "oh we think we found the problem, give us five years and alles will be sharp sharp!" ... I think in most other countries a massive independent investigation would've been launched by now.

Plans are in the pipelines to make sure this problem is avoided in future.

I'm so comforted, considering all the comparative secrecy and vague press releases so far - we are in such good hands!

I fully agree that we all need to do as much as possible to not waste any electricity unnecessarily, and to that effect I tried posting a long list of tips on an earlier page of this thread (just to get things back to more constructive territory), but most of the responses seemed to be just whining about having to not be wasteful now. There is no emergency rescue coming for us, physics and engineering have limits (that's why proper planning is so important), so as you say, we do have to focus on damage control here. That doesn't mean we should focus ONLY on damage control - that's exactly what the guilty parties in government want you to do. But I WELCOME further positive discussion on what people can do to lower their energy usage, additional tips etc.. Many are just little habits that are really quite easy to develop and engender.