Eskom is getting killed - expert

Bad1 said:
No matter how much you educate a man of colour he/she will still have finger in the nose.
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I guess this wasn’t a literal thing but if so.. I know plenty white fe/males with/out degrees and they do this.

BECAUSE

It’s about upbringing & hygiene ie quality of parenting which has little to nothing to do with education, race, culture, wealth and/or class (albeit this is traditionally where parentage or the responsibility of class like community fixes this).

When it comes to ethics and morality, it again is very dependent on the community and environment you brought up in. In some cases, religion and community is used to fix short comings as an ideal.. but I don’t believe it’s exclusively to such groups as I’ve seen all manner of immoral acts committed by “religious” folk.

So what’s my point?

The failures we see is due to the societal constructs of morality failing on a individual level and poor governance weakening ethics in institutions. The long and the short.. pathetic parenting is in part, to blame too.

So is race really a contributing factor? No. The problem is those in leadership positions decided to weaken governance which has run rampant. Who society fell apart is its own problem to be frank.

Personally I blame those that make exceptions.. it’s ok to break the law because others are doing so. It’s ok to ignore traffic offenses because u didn’t elect the governing party.. it’s ok to not pay eTolls because u dispute the system despite all laws and legal recourse running to conclusion.. and then before u know it, it’s ok to kill someone because “they” do wrong or are the cause of society falling apart? It’s a slippery slope!
 
die die die!

The era of private power companies is here. Just needs Govt to sign it off...
 
Eskom is getting killed? Is this new (even lower) standard mybb is going to? And one hardly needs an "expert" to regurgitate the same sht day in day out
 
krycor said:
Uhm.. I reckon even if they retrench they won’t get that cost/kWh down enough and that’s without considering non-payment by municipalities & supply optimization which I suspect is both needed just to break even.

Curious how municipalities are allowed to sell at a higher price and not pay.
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It is enough. Eskom is currently spending R30bn a month on salaries. If they retrench 30%, as research has shown they are overstaffed by (could be even more), they can save R10bn a month. That is R120bn a year. Their debt is R440bn, so they could pay it back in a few years depending on interest. If they normalise their salaries over a few years (since the average salary is R700k per annum) it will improve their financial situation as well.
 
j4ck455 said:
Isn't Eskom 100% government owned, as in there is 1 and only 1 shareholder (not plural)?

Or did he specifically not mention tax payers because he thinks tax payers are somehow shareholders?

So you are saying that if president Ramaphosa had the power to declare (this or on some other future evening) that Eskom no longer has a monopoly on electricity production, that the very next day all electricity problems would magically be solved.

It takes time to build power stations, including renewables like solar and wind farms, these things do not happen overnight and it would also take a fair amount of time to get transmission lines in place etc etc etc.

Even a state owned and run monopoly (like Eskom) can successfully fulfil its intended mandate if it is managed properly, Eskom can and must be turned around, even if it loses its monopoly status Eskom still needs to be fixed.

South Africa does not have time to waste waiting for competing energy companies to create new power plants (whether coal, nuclear or renewables), the only short-term solution is for government to catch a wakeup and brutally turn Eskom around, without reliable electricity there is no economy, and without an economy the country tanks.

And by brutally, I mean retrench all of the dead wood, even go as far as reducing electricity prices in stages to breathe life back into the economy, and municipality budget money that National Treasury would normally pay directly to municipalities is conditionally paid if no debt is owed to Eskom.

There are lots of things that government can do to rescue Eskom, there is however no quick fix silver bullet for reducing that mountain of debt to more sustainable levels, it will take time to at least halve that debt, government just needs to start without further delays.
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Building renewables is generally very fast and can be implemented piece by piece.

You can also very easily impingement a price on delivery for each piece as it comes online (of course hydro it would not work).
 
You know, the ANC is amazing.

They can either:
Fix the corruption at Eskom, retrench 30% of the staff, get rid of a lot of "senior managers" and end the corrupt deals, to bring the costs of generating electricity down

OR

Steal more money

So of course they will steal more money.
 
furpile said:
It is enough. Eskom is currently spending R30bn a month on salaries. If they retrench 30%, as research has shown they are overstaffed by (could be even more), they can save R10bn a month. That is R120bn a year. Their debt is R440bn, so they could pay it back in a few years depending on interest. If they normalise their salaries over a few years (since the average salary is R700k per annum) it will improve their financial situation as well.
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R30bn / year.
 
Gaz{M} said:
R30bn / year.
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Even R10bn a year saving brings them closer to a break even point YoY.... it will also drive efficiencies and bring overall costs down over time... But its a political minefield of a move to retrench so its more than likely won't be taken, even though its probably the required step 1 of actually fixing Eskom.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Even R10bn a year saving brings them closer to a break even point YoY.... it will also drive efficiencies and bring overall costs down over time... But its a political minefield of a move to retrench so its more than likely won't be taken, even though its probably the required step 1 of actually fixing Eskom.
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if Eskom was actually managed like the entire point of it was to produce cheap power for the country (like the old days), things would be fine. The problem is that Eskom is managed like it is a jobs for everyone program.
 
Johnatan56 said:
Building renewables is generally very fast and can be implemented piece by piece.

You can also very easily impingement a price on delivery for each piece as it comes online (of course hydro it would not work).
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How fast, overnight?
 
furpile said:
It is enough. Eskom is currently spending R30bn a month on salaries. If they retrench 30%, as research has shown they are overstaffed by (could be even more), they can save R10bn a month. That is R120bn a year. Their debt is R440bn, so they could pay it back in a few years depending on interest. If they normalise their salaries over a few years (since the average salary is R700k per annum) it will improve their financial situation as well.
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Isn't it more like overstaffed by 2/3, as in only 1/3 of Eskom employees are necessary for the amount of electricity that Eskom generates?
 
Gaz{M} said:
R30bn / year.
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You are correct, I remembered it wrong.

j4ck455 said:
Isn't it more like overstaffed by 2/3, as in only 1/3 of Eskom employees are necessary for the amount of electricity that Eskom generates?
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That depends on which article you read, in an ideal environment I am sure Eskom can run on 30% of their current staff. But I have also seen that overseas they are moving a lot more to contractor work, outsourcing large parts of the maintenance to contractors. In SA that doesn't always work out so well. The large number of contractors might make it look like they can run with fewer employees when in fact they are just outsourced.
 
j4ck455 said:
How fast, overnight?
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Within a year, talking about SVP, not CSP, CSP I think is within 3 depending (but this is an older project).
E.g. the Jasper project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Solar_Energy_Project
It's older, being 2014 (it was the year with the most solar added), from announcement at end of 2013 to completion in October 2014.
This is wind: "The project reached Commercial Operations Date mid-2014, having started construction in December 2012. " - https://jeffreysbaywindfarm.co.za/about/ also 2014, that's 60 turbines.
This is more modern:
702081

KHOBAB AND LOERIESFONTEIN WIND FARMS BEGIN POWERING 240 000 HOMES | Khobab Wind Farm | Sustainable Wind Energy

khobabwind.co.za khobabwind.co.za
E.g. Khobab was one year from start to finish, 140MW.

Either way, faster than the 10+ years of Kusile and Medupi.
 
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Johnatan56 said:
Within a year, talking about SVP, not CSP, CSP I think is within 3 depending (but this is an older project).
E.g. the Jasper project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jasper_Solar_Energy_Project
It's older, being 2014 (it was the year with the most solar added), from announcement at end of 2013 to completion in October 2014.
This is wind: "The project reached Commercial Operations Date mid-2014, having started construction in December 2012. " - https://jeffreysbaywindfarm.co.za/about/ also 2014, that's 60 turbines.
This is more modern:
View attachment 702081

KHOBAB AND LOERIESFONTEIN WIND FARMS BEGIN POWERING 240 000 HOMES | Khobab Wind Farm | Sustainable Wind Energy

khobabwind.co.za khobabwind.co.za
E.g. Khobab was one year from start to finish, 140MW.

Either way, faster than the 10+ years of Kusile and Medupi.
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Noted, still if Eskom were suddenly (for whatever reason) unable to supply power to large parts of the country, it would take at least a year for new alternative power production plants to be built.

Kusile and Medupi are just two examples of why Eskom should not be given (or loaned) money to build and manage (new/old) power plants.

Unfortunately it doesn't change the fact that South Africa is stuck with Eskom and would be a complete disaster if Eskom is not rescued.
 
j4ck455 said:
How fast, overnight?
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We have Solar projects in SA that have been built in 3 months*.

*after all the paperwork has been done (+-2 years odd paperwork for a 3 month buildout).

Get rid of the some of the red tape at Eskom for generation thats purely in place to slow renewables down, and we can have fast implementations.
 
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