Eskom warns it may have to shut down 16,000MW after pollution exemptions declined

[kolaval]

The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago.so the problem can only compound by not investing in extra capacity

 

[Sinbad]

Were they? Were they really? I mean the De Villiers commision in the 80s wasn't thrown together cause Escom/Evkom was performing well in the 80s.

Yes.
Power companies around the world used to send teams to observe the builds of the six-packs in the eastern transvaal. They were put together in unheard-of timeframes.

source - my dad was a project manager on a couple of them.

 

[wingnut771]

Were they? Were they really? I mean the De Villiers commision in the 80s wasn't thrown together cause Escom/Evkom was performing well in the 80s.

 

[Lupus]

View attachment 1213218

Yup and the EAF was around 72% for it's coal plants at the time,
In 1983 matters reached a low point for ESCOM,, its power stations were running at an average availability of 72% and interruptions in supply were common place.

Heritage - Eskom Heritage

Eskom Heritage Unit in the Government and Regulatory Affairs Division is responsible for protecting and highlighting the organisation’s historical footprint,

www.eskom.co.za

 

[wingnut771]

But just how much of that installed capacity is actually working?

16000MW

 

[wingnut771]

Yup and the EAF was around 72% for it's coal plants at the time,
In 1983 matters reached a low point for ESCOM,, its power stations were running at an average availability of 72% and interruptions in supply were common place.

Heritage - Eskom Heritage

Eskom Heritage Unit in the Government and Regulatory Affairs Division is responsible for protecting and highlighting the organisation’s historical footprint,

www.eskom.co.za

I highly doubt it was because of incompetence.

 

[Lupus]

I highly doubt it was because of incompetence.

Possibly not, but can't be called one of the best if at the time your EAF is sitting at 72%, perhaps later in the 80s and through the 90s, when Eskom started to actually win prizes.

 

[xrapidx]

Wont' bail us out = loadshedding
Won't increase the electricity rates = loadshedding
Run your pool pump = loadshedding
Do nothing = loadshedding.

 

[PaulMurkin]

I highly doubt it was because of incompetence.

At the time the reasons were different...

 

[wingnut771]

Possibly not, but can't be called one of the best if at the time your EAF is sitting at 72%, perhaps later in the 80s and through the 90s, when Eskom started to actually win prizes.

Was it not because of a drought?
From your link:


Anyway, I don't think its fair to single out 9 years out of 100.

 

[Lupus]

Was it not because of a drought?
From your link:
View attachment 1213234

Anyway, I don't think its fair to single out 9 years out of 100.

Well not really 9 years, they wanted to increase tariffs in the 70s to fund expansion, they had scandals in the 80s thanks to their chief accountant pilfering millions, they had issues with the power plants in the 80s. Has Eskom actually ever really run well?
Surely we should've privatised this entity a long time ago, as it's never really run well. Well actually probably as stated late 80s through to the early 2000s it was, but then of course the current regime got it's paws all over it good and proper.
So the engineers might've been great, but Eskom itself has always had issues.

 

[wingnut771]

Well not really 9 years, they wanted to increase tariffs in the 70s to fund expansion, they had scandals in the 80s thanks to their chief accountant pilfering millions, they had issues with the power plants in the 80s. Has Eskom actually ever really run well?
Surely we should've privatised this entity a long time ago, as it's never really run well. Well actually probably as stated late 80s through to the early 2000s it was, but then of course the current regime got it's paws all over it good and proper.
So the engineers might've been great, but Eskom itself has always had issues.

I hear you, anything with politicians end up stinking like dogshit but I still think that is mountain out of a molehill stuff compared to the molehill mountain of today.

We could have had 8 Medupi's by now with the amount of money wasted.

 

[Lupus]

I hear you, anything with politicians end up stinking like dogshit but I still think that is mountain out of a molehill stuff compared to the molehill mountain of today.

We could have had 8 Medupi's by now with the amount of money wasted.

Not really, about the same size molehill just covered up better I think . People keep harping on how well Eskom was run, but was it ever really .
But yeah we should've already had 4 new power stations running, from 1960 to 1990 they'd built like 20 stations, from 1994 to 2021 they've built 1 1/2.

 

[richjdavies]

Not really, about the same size molehill just covered up better I think . People keep harping on how well Eskom was run, but was it ever really .
But yeah we should've already had 4 new power stations running, from 1960 to 1990 they'd built like 20 stations, from 1994 to 2021 they've built 1 1/2.

Agreed. Harking back to better times is often not really true (never mind the pang of racism about it)...

Key isn't privatisation. Its competition in generation.

The grid isnt that bad... Its the generators that we really need someone else to turn to when Eskom fails and fails year after year.

 

[Gordon_R]

Agreed. Harking back to better times is often not really true (never mind the pang of racism about it)...

Key isn't privatisation. Its competition in generation.

The grid isnt that bad... Its the generators that we really need someone else to turn to when Eskom fails and fails year after year.

Air pollution standards in the 1960s were very different. It's hard to make objective comparisons.

 

[Vorastra]

Soon every day will be Braai Day

 

[EpicPotato]

Hold on a minute.

In my limited understanding of all this, didn't we just sign an agreement, with a loan, where we ensured that we could reduce our environmental impact in the next 10 years and transition away from coal power?

A couple months later, Eskom is enacting spoilt child syndrome so they can continue blasting coal at an even greater rate?

Yep. Makes total sense.

 

[access]

would be great if you could switch between power suppliers on the fly like you can in the uk. check the best price for your area etc.

eskom is being allowed to hold the country to ransom. (or used seems more appropriate)

 

[Lupus]

would be great if you could switch between power suppliers on the fly like you can in the uk. check the best price for your area etc.

eskom is being allowed to hold the country to ransom. (or used seems more appropriate)

I mean the cANCer were so anti NP yet one of the first things they did was absorb them into their party and kept the SOEs going, imagine if Eskom was privatized 25 years ago

 

[itareanlnotani]

My fellow South Africans …At this stage of our country’s development we are prioritizing power availability over clean air. There’s barely enough power to go around at the moment. The scrubbers need WATER to run so I can see why Eskom wants an exemption. This was a strategic decision make no mistake about it. Nobody forgot about the scrubbers.

However do not despair. As everyone installs solar at home or at the office bit by bit we’re taking some load off the Eskom grid so the gap between what Eskom can produce with scrubbers vs. what power demand we have and what solar and wind can produce will get smaller and smaller over time. If we’re incredibly lucky by the time Eskom’s exemption expires in a few years time and they actually install the scrubbers we should have beefed up our solar and we should have minimal load shedding if at all.

Fixed that for you.