Load shedding and now this . . .

We've been getting some hardcore brownouts recently. Like 3 per day where the lights dim noticably. :eek:

Time for a UPS.
 
Well coming on 3 hours now without power in the Walmer, Humewood and Summerstrand areas (I'm sure more, can only confirm those with family there). Power been out since 11am, no warnings, no schedules and I expect like a couple of weeks ago when it also unexpectedly happened, no apologies or mention of it in the paper... Guess if you have to issue warnings for more than one suburb like Seaview, then it officially becomes loadshedding...
 
Generator Man said:
So is it happening or not?
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Yeah - every other week. It's not much of a problem when you know its coming.
Calico182 said:
Well coming on 3 hours now without power in the Walmer, Humewood and Summerstrand areas (I'm sure more, can only confirm those with family there). Power been out since 11am, no warnings, no schedules and I expect like a couple of weeks ago when it also unexpectedly happened, no apologies or mention of it in the paper... Guess if you have to issue warnings for more than one suburb like Seaview, then it officially becomes loadshedding...
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What a royal pain it the butt its been today. I had to drive all over the place to find an atm and a bank that were open. I found a ATM, got my cash out and was walking in the bank when their power went off so I had to find another branch . . . took forever and no one seems to have a clue whats going on.

Then I get home and half an hour later power goes off there too. :mad: Seems like a rolling blackout?
 
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bwana said:
Yeah - every other week. It's not much of a problem when you know its coming. What a royal pain it the butt its been today. I had to drive all over the place to find an atm and a bank that were open. I found a ATM, got my cash out and was walking in the bank when their power went off so I had to find another branch . . . took forever and no one seems to have a clue whats going on.

Then I get home and half an hour later power goes off there too. :mad: Seems like a rolling blackout?
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Looks like I need to send you a few portable gen sets to smous for me there :p:D
 
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Generator Man said:
Looks like I need to send you a few portable gen sets to smous for me there :p:D
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With all the soft hill people moving into the area wanting their creature comforts they'd probably sell pretty well :)
 
5 HOURS later and the power is finally back. o thank you great and merciful eskom for letting your kindness shine upon us.

arg, what a waste of a day.
 
Calico182 said:
5 HOURS later and the power is finally back. o thank you great and merciful eskom for letting your kindness shine upon us.

arg, what a waste of a day.
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Any idea what it was all about? Ours was only off for an hour or two.
 
bwana said:
Any idea what it was all about? Ours was only off for an hour or two.
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no clue. never found out what the last one (i think in july -happened two weeks in a row - also off for 5/6 hours) was about either.

and now I see that my 250GB hard drive (containing photos etc - but not to worry, have 2 more copies of it on the network - i've been burned before) isn't getting detected - luckily (?!) narrowed it down to only being the external enclosure that's busted.
 
Faulty ‘pilot cables‘ cause power cuts

http://www.theherald.co.za/herald/news/n03_07102008.htm

Rochelle de Kock HERALD REPORTER

FAULTY electrical cables caused power cuts in large sections of Nelson Mandela Bay yesterday, causing chaos in the city.

Homes and shops were affected, while frustrated motorists were stuck in traffic jams.

While many businesses were forced to close their doors, court proceedings also had to be put on hold.

Two faulty pilot communication cables, which are used to send signals to the control station if there is a short circuit, left a number of Bay areas without electricity for several hours.

Municipal spokesman Lourens Schoeman said the power failure happened around 9am when the first cable became faulty.

“When technicians started restoring the electricity supply shortly after 10am, a second one also became faulty,” said Schoeman.

He explained that the cables relayed false information to the control centre, which resulted in the power outages.

The Ditchling, Chatty, Mount Road and Swartkops sub-stations were affected. Walmer was without power almost the entire day as the second cable “took a long while to fix”. Schoeman denied claims that a cable at the construction site of the new 2010 World Cup stadium in North End was damaged by a worker.

The areas that were affected by the faulty cables were: Central, Brickmakerskloof, Greenacres, Kempston Road area, Korsten, Schauderville, North End, Greenacres, Newton Park, Sydenham, Mount Croix, Parsons Hill, Walmer, Firestone, Diaz Road, Cadbury, Linkside and Mill Park.

Lorraine was also without electricity yesterday, but this was caused by a private contractor who accidentally ripped out a main supply cable.

KFC in Walmer closed its doors until after 4pm because they were without electricity for almost the entire day.

Siyanda Sonwabo, manager of Steers at The Bridge, said they were greatly inconvenienced because they missed their breakfast crowd.

Magistrates, attorneys and prosecutors at the Port Elizabeth magistrate‘s court had to put their cases on hold as the courtrooms were without lights for about 1½ hours.

Attorney Wayne Macgear was frustrated by the power outage and said it was a major inconvenience for everyone concerned.

“It affects all the attorneys, private clients and even state witnesses, and it costs a lot of money,” said Macgear.

“My client had to fly in from Johannesburg for his case, but nothing‘s happening here at the moment, so it‘s a waste of money.”

Lawyer Alwyn Griebenow was irritated and inconvenienced by the power cut, and said it posed financial implications for his clients.

While all the other courts had to wait patiently for the electricity problem to be fixed, Court 27 went ahead with proceedings, relying on two torches and sunlight from the passage.
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ok fine, faulty cables. but please explain then why my power went off at 11am sharp, and returned at 4pm sharp. I know it was sharp, as when the power came back on and my radio switched on, I caught the last 'beep' on the countdown to the hour on SAFM, just as the 4pm news was starting.

very strange that faults can be so punctual.
 
just lost power for 5 minutes again - feared it was going to be a repeat of yesterday...
 
Generator Man said:
Vrot grid. Because it is more important to pay exhorbitant bonuses to management than maintaining your grid in a heatlhy condition.
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Indeed... apparently the outages from a few months ago in my area were caused by cable theft, yet City Power denied this fron start to finish when I phoned them, they kept saying that "the cable is wet" or "the substation blew up"

This was revealed in the local rag, when some lady happened upon the cable sheaths buried in the ground...

And it is indeed a vrot grid. They are not doing even close to half of the maintenance they should be doing. I haven't seen them cleaning insulators, or even scrubbing overhead wires in years. They just "patch and fix" when anything breaks. They'll replace transformers and HV switchgear but that's all, and it also depends on how important the area is, if there's a hospital on the grid they'll put a little bit more energy and initiative in their work.
 
Turiko said:
Indeed... apparently the outages from a few months ago in my area were caused by cable theft, yet City Power denied this fron start to finish when I phoned them, they kept saying that "the cable is wet" or "the substation blew up"

This was revealed in the local rag, when some lady happened upon the cable sheaths buried in the ground...

And it is indeed a vrot grid. They are not doing even close to half of the maintenance they should be doing. I haven't seen them cleaning insulators, or even scrubbing overhead wires in years. They just "patch and fix" when anything breaks. They'll replace transformers and HV switchgear but that's all, and it also depends on how important the area is, if there's a hospital on the grid they'll put a little bit more energy and initiative in their work.
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I'd love to know how much electricity is being wasted by inefficent equipment (old un-maintained substations, decrepid transformer windings for one) old switchgear with massive resistance and patched up vrot cabling.
 
I'd also love to know. Have you seen what it looks like in places like Hurst Hill, Auckland Park and Brixton? In the winter, one can expect one power outage per day on average.

And we're not even mentioning the streetlights being on during the day due to them using that inefficient 1050Hz ripple signalling and antique equipment at that.
 
Turiko said:
And we're not even mentioning the streetlights being on during the day due to them using that inefficient 1050Hz ripple signalling and antique equipment at that.
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Maybe this is a really dumb question, so please be nice. :p

Why not put daylight sensors on the street lights? They can be "supplemented" with the ripple relays in times of trouble. BUT, it will prevent lights from burning during daytime and you don't have to change times during season changes.

My father in law is the caretaker for a block of flats, and their passage lights were run on a timer connected to a relay. During season changes (and after power outages) he'd have to reset the timer. So earlier this year we replaced the timer with a daylight sensor and it works like a charm!
 
Paulr said:
Maybe this is a really dumb question, so please be nice. :p

Why not put daylight sensors on the street lights? They can be "supplemented" with the ripple relays in times of trouble. BUT, it will prevent lights from burning during daytime and you don't have to change times during season changes.

My father in law is the caretaker for a block of flats, and their passage lights were run on a timer connected to a relay. During season changes (and after power outages) he'd have to reset the timer. So earlier this year we replaced the timer with a daylight sensor and it works like a charm!
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Because according to them it costs too much. That is because I guess no government big-shot has a stake in a company that manufactures them(yet).

I wonder if no bonuses were paid for the last 2 years if that would have been enough to fund proper light sensing switches?
 
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