Farewell to cheap electricity

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Farewell to cheap electricity

Cheap and abundant electricity supplied by the state-owned power utility Eskom was the underlying assumption of almost all South Africans for over a generation. This assumption, over the long term, as we now are seeing, is a faulty one and if the country is to get through its present crisis, then it will have to preserve and build its economy using entirely different foundations. That won’t be easy – for anyone. Cherished economic policies will not survive and the way the country is managed will have to change too.
 
Cheap and abundant? The masses get it for f all.
 
Were it not for the ANC's disastrous takeover I'd venture that cheap & abundant would still have been with us, even with the additional pdi connections. Capitalists simply don't suffocate their own future & prosperity by doing nothing or being dumb with a strategic resource. Problem is the management of the country is not going to improve, the opposite is happening in fact.
 
I still want Eskom to start charging everyone for usage and those that don't pay must be cut off.
Just to ensure votes the whole collection system favours the masses and punishes the payers.
They must be fair and every one who uses electricity must pay equally for their usage.

I also don't see why the masses that do pay get the benefit of prepaid before the others. We get told there's a 6 month waiting list.

As mentioned in other posts Eskom should also have cheap loans for solar installations with a interest rate of say 1.5% over 5yrs.
 
Electricity is already expensive. Eskom's own document lists 3 reasons for their financial issues, one of which is lower sales.

Eskom's managerial pool needs to be greatly reduced in size.

Eskom needs to significantly reduce the amount they are spending on employee home loans.

And as most keep saying, cut off non-payers, thieves.

How to encourage investment in Africa's energy sector
 
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why do the masses get it for free? they never want to offend their support base. this results in easy targets getting nailed. my costs have more than doubled since they started this 'we need to charge more' campaign years ago. guess what? they singing the same damn song. fsuck them. Eskom employees are very well paid with nice bonuses. probably get electricity for free as well. fsuckers.

daily load shedding but they all probably scoring 5's for performance reviews. wonder if they work if load shedding is happening. cos like the electricity is off so surely they have fsuckall to do then. lol. hate that fsuckn Eishkom.
 
Cheap electricity? Ours hasn't been cheap for a few years, but hey how about charging and getting the 32% that don't pay to actually pay or cut them off.
 
I just skim read this, because of many inaccuracies, but I'll just point out one:

"Eskom is running the Ankerlig gas fired Open Cycle power station near Atlantis as a base load power station using diesel at enormous cost. This too is unsustainable. We need to fast-track the development of an LNG import and storage facilities at Saldanha Bay and convert Ankerlig to a Combined Cycle Gas facility (effectively adding turbo-chargers) using this imported LNG gas. The Kouga Port should consider the same thing. Mossel Bay can be serviced by rail. By removing coastal cities as importers of electricity, transmission losses of between 10 to 20% resulting from getting Eskom’s electricity to those places could be saved."

Erm... Nope... Ankerlig was always meant to run off natural gas. That was why it was built, with a redundancy factor to burn diesel etc. There is no mention of Sunbird or the Ibhubesi gas project and the plan to tap into our huge natural gas reserves. What has happened to this? Is it still on track to be soon completed? Where has happened to the money?

http://www.miningreview.com/sunbird...as-project-acquisition-offshore-south-africa/
http://www.lngworldnews.com/sunbird-eskom-to-test-viability-of-ibhubesi-gas-field-south-africa/
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/ar...or-possible-gas-supply-to-ankerlig-2014-01-06
http://www.offshore-technology.com/...e-basin/ibhubesi-gas-field-orange-basin3.html

It seems it's easier to sell off our natural resources to overseas countries, and then quietly pocket the profit. And when you run out of money to manage/run things, you squeeze the taxpayer even more.

The many solutions to South Africa's problems are SO simple to implement AND we can make healthy profit to plough back into developing education etc. But no... If you are a wANCer, if something is working and it ain't broke, you find a big hammer and smash it to pieces and then pi55 all over the mangled wreckage. Then you complain that now you are suffering because of this broken thing, and you immediately blame apartheid for your woes.

And as always, the solution is in my sig.
 
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Petec said:
I just skim read this, because of many inaccuracies, but I'll just point out one:

"Eskom is running the Ankerlig gas fired Open Cycle power station near Atlantis as a base load power station using diesel at enormous cost. This too is unsustainable. We need to fast-track the development of an LNG import and storage facilities at Saldanha Bay and convert Ankerlig to a Combined Cycle Gas facility (effectively adding turbo-chargers) using this imported LNG gas. The Kouga Port should consider the same thing. Mossel Bay can be serviced by rail. By removing coastal cities as importers of electricity, transmission losses of between 10 to 20% resulting from getting Eskom’s electricity to those places could be saved."

Erm... Nope... Ankerlig was always meant to run off natural gas. That was why it was built, with a redundancy factor to burn diesel etc. There is no mention of Sunbird or the Ibhubesi gas project and the plan to tap into our huge natural gas reserves. What has happened to this? Is it still on track to be soon completed? Where has happened to the money?

http://www.miningreview.com/sunbird...as-project-acquisition-offshore-south-africa/
http://www.lngworldnews.com/sunbird-eskom-to-test-viability-of-ibhubesi-gas-field-south-africa/
http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/ar...or-possible-gas-supply-to-ankerlig-2014-01-06
http://www.offshore-technology.com/...e-basin/ibhubesi-gas-field-orange-basin3.html

It seems it's easier to sell off our natural resources to overseas countries, and then quietly pocket the profit. And when you run out of money to manage/run things, you squeeze the taxpayer even more.

The many solutions to South Africa's problems are SO simple to implement AND we can make healthy profit to plough back into developing education etc. But no... If you are a wANCer, if something is working and it ain't broke, you find a big hammer and smash it to pieces and then pi55 all over the mangled wreckage. Then you complain that now you are suffering because of this broken thing, and you immediately blame apartheid for your woes.

And as always, the solution is in my sig.
Click to expand...

Also who decided only Eskom allowed to generate power? Dont most countries have more than one utility company, why does Eskom write its own laws and then break them?
 
If you own a property, go solar already D Yes, its ready for you. At least start buying the parts. a solar panel to charge my 2x 103aH batteries costs R2500 (for a good quality one)
 
ghoti said:
If you own a property, go solar already D Yes, its ready for you. At least start buying the parts. a solar panel to charge my 2x 103aH batteries costs R2500 (for a good quality one)
Click to expand...

How long does it take you to break even?
 
ghoti said:
If you own a property, go solar already D Yes, its ready for you. At least start buying the parts. a solar panel to charge my 2x 103aH batteries costs R2500 (for a good quality one)
Click to expand...

How much do those batteries cost? What size inverter do you have connected to them? How much did that cost?
 
It is cheap compared on a 1:1 basis with other countries but once you factor in purchase power that is no longer the case.
 
I don't really care how much it costs, all I care about is that it's on 100% of the time.
 
Cheap electricity, bah. Eskom is going to come to the point where they are to expensive for their paying customers and then all bets are off.
 
Rocket-Boy said:
The eishkom salaries, that is where the biggest problem lies.
Click to expand...

Or rather the top 1%? I hate articles that say salaries are the issue and then when you deeper and look at real salaries u find a 1-250 ratio between low entry and CEO.. Very curious what this ratio is for Eskom where they can't afford lavish CEO deals.. I lol the management pack consume most of the bill
 
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