Load Shedding - the all in one thread

I want to cry:

Eskom plans to develop 20 000 megawatts of nuclear power by 2025. An investment decision on the first plant, which would have a capacity of 3 300 to 4 000MW, will go to the board in June.
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Only going to make a decision in June!!!
WTF???

"Let us waste ANOTHER 6 months"
 
HavocXphere said:
nauseous_monkey, your figures are wrong.


Standard bank, the biggest of the banks, has a yearly income of about 80 billion. 63 billion of which are life assurance and interest income and is therefore not affect directly by power cuts. That leaves 17 billion income per year or 46 million per day that could be affected (assuming that the power cuts completely kills the income streams, with is unlikely). There are maybe 10 major financial/banking operation in SA so it could be ~460 million per day for financial banking institutions, which is still unrealistically high, not 5000 million per day.
link


Eskom price increases are regulated. They recently got approval for a ~17% increase for an entire year. Not 14% in two months. Emergency cash injections will come from the Trevour not via insta-price hikes.


The GDP in 2006 was about 576b$ x 7= R4032 x 5 = R20160 billion for 5 years. When combining that with what you said we can conclude that:
1) There never was any economic activity outside of JHB and
2) Power cuts will cause everyone in SA to stop working/spending/producing completely.

I suspect that your inside source is the HR department because those billions your quoting are totally arbitrary.:p
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I dearly accept your criticism of the figures that I posted, but I think I have not gotten the message across to you adequately. Sorry for that. Let me try again...


The GDP by definition is the Gross Domestic Profit, in other words Gross - Expenses = Income which is the GDP. The GDP in other words is a terrible thing to use as to work out the daily loses suffered by the banking institutions and companies in general.

Thus when we speak of losses... this is what I mean...

Expenses (for the time the power goes off) + Loss of Income (The money which was expected to come in AKA Gross for the day)

================
Here is an example...

The Expense of running all the banking institutions, factories, companies, retail stores and more in South Africa daily.

PLUS

The Income which is lost because there is not productivity/service.

EQUALS

A Very large number that cannot be calculated barely on the GDP of 2006, neither the Income from Standard bank. Both of these values do not reflect both losses in terms of expenses and income loss collectively.

================


NOW IN LAYMAN TERMS....

My dad closes his door to his retail store for 6 hours a day in peak business hours because of load-shedding. That is HALF OF THE BUSINESS DAY. Let's assume he makes R 30 000.00 Gross per day... NOW HE ONLY MAKES HALF (plus/minus) so he only makes R 15 000.00 Gross for the day.

NOw here is the problem...

He still employess the same amount of staff, still uses the same equiptment, still pays the same rent, he still has all the expenses he had when he was open for a full day, but now only he is Grossing LESS.

In other words...

He might aswell not open his doors as his PROFIT for the day used to be about R5000.00 now he has to pay money back... because there is no Profit from all the losses.
 
Psychologists say the continuing power outages are causing widespread distress and pessimism.

It's the tenth consecutive day of countrywide rolling blackouts and they're expected to continue until at least next Thursday.

South Africans who've been left angry and vulnerable by the ongoing power cuts have lashed out at government and Eskom.

Some people say they've lost faith in the country.

Doctor Ronel Duchen says people feel out of control as the power cuts impact the way they have to conduct their daily lives.

Psychologist Adene Davis agrees saying it's the lack of control over events that disturbs people.
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702 eye witness news
 
sandmanm34 said:
702 eye witness news
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So true.
I said the same thing to the wife not 40 mins ago.
The effect on the mental well being of the nation far outweighs the economic costs.

I went so far as got out a suitcase to see what I could take should I decide later this month to hop on a plane and job hunt abroad.


And yet - the silence is deafening from our leaders. Mbeki? You awake?
 
JamesR said:
Eskom is doing maintenance on the one unit at Koeberg resulting in a 5% shortage of capacity.
The public in SA use 14% of Eskoms total capacity.
The largest single user in SA is BHP Billiton
It's one Alluminium smelter employing less than 2000 people uses 8%
Shutting one factory down while maintenance is carried out would result in there being very few blackouts for the 45000000 other people in SA
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Where did you get these stats from JamesR? BHP Billiton's largest Alluminium smelter is Hillside in Richards Bay which produces 700 000 metric tonnes per annum and uses about 1125 MW of power. This equates to about 3% of Eskom's total generating capacity. BHP Billiton's total electricity usage from it's Hillside, Bayside and Mozal (Mozal is in Mozambique & I believe they get their power from Eskom) smelters is 2150 MW which would account for approx. 5.6% of Eskom's capacity.

The first phase of the Rio Tinto Alcan smelter in Coega, will come on stream in 2010 and will require 1355 MW or 3.5% of Eskom's capacity. Eskom charges about $0.01 to $0.02 per kilowatt-hour to BHP Billiton depending on world Alluminium prices and Rio Tinto have negotiated even lower prices. The average home consumer therefore pays about four times what these big electricity guzzlers do. I would be interested to know exactly what economic benefits South Africa derives by having these smelters located on our shores. We don't produce Bauxite here so essentially, we import it, process it and then ship it out and create a 5-10 thousand jobs along the way. Are these big guzzlers going to pay the 15-20% annual increases that we poor home consumers face for years to come or are their prices fixed to the terms of their supply contracts with Eskom?

When the R78.6-billion Medupi power station comes on stream in 2013 it will produce 4500 MW. BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto will be taking about 80% of the capacity of a power station the size of Medupi. That would equate to us spending R63-billion to build a power plant to supply cheap electricity to these smelters with questionable economic return on investment. The Star reported today that a 3 hour average power cut is costing local industry R2-billion a day. If true, that's one helluva price to pay!
 
What worries me is:
If Eskom produces 38000MW, and the smelter uses 1300MW, that leaves 36000MW or so.
If we are short 2500MW, that means that at any given point in the day, roughly 8% of the country is blacked out.
 
Moederloos said:
What worries me is:
If Eskom produces 38000MW, and the smelter uses 1300MW, that leaves 36000MW or so.
If we are short 2500MW, that means that at any given point in the day, roughly 8% of the country is blacked out.
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That would be about right. Smelters have to run 24/7/365 and Eskom signed a 25 year supply agreement for the Coega smelter in November 2006 and I would guess that this supply would be guaranteed. Are the rest of us being shedded at the expense of a few major users?
 
Vogon Poetry Warning! Alert!

Twas a dark and stormy night,
when we lost the o'erhead light,
warnings foretold,
unless we were bold,
supply she 'oud be tight.


Apologies all round :/

:D
 
Last edited:
Gatiep and Satan.
Satan visits Cape Town and meets Gatiep.
"do you know who I am?" says Satan.
"nay" says Gatiep, "give me a hint."
Satan says, "I'm the prince of darkness!!!".
"*** it!!" says Gatiep, "jys moes die CEO van Eskom!!"
 
Hi,
Just had a power cut(loadshedding is not the appropriate word) That lasted from 16h10 till 18h10.
On a Saturday afternoon with most bussiness people at home and offices closed!.........
How can that happen? Who is using the power?
Someone is lying to us.My educated guess would be that Escom is lying,their problems are far bigger than they let on.

We will wait and see what happens on Monday at Koeberg.
(The scheduled maintenance is due to start then)
 
Piepalook said:
Hi,
Just had a power cut(loadshedding is not the appropriate word) That lasted from 16h10 till 18h10.
On a Saturday afternoon with most bussiness people at home and offices closed!.........
How can that happen? Who is using the power?
Someone is lying to us.My educated guess would be that Escom is lying,their problems are far bigger than they let on.

We will wait and see what happens on Monday at Koeberg.
(The scheduled maintenance is due to start then)
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It is happening, because Eskom is running over 100% in the week - and under 100% on the weekend.
No other explanation makes sense - someone is welcome to furnish one.

By running over 100% they are effectively reducing the life span of the equipment - much like running your car at high revs all the time.

They are doing this, because if they did not - we would be, say, 6000MW short in the week.

If I am right (and I am open to correction), it is VERY scary. If we lose one of those overworked stations, we can kiss our rears goodbye.
 
I wonder what would happen if the national grid trips out.. Given that people don't switch things off when there is a power cut, the surge in demand would be staggering.

Actually, I don't want to think about it as it would most likely be the end of any sort of chance this country stands..
 
Moederloos said:
It is happening, because Eskom is running over 100% in the week - and under 100% on the weekend.
No other explanation makes sense - someone is welcome to furnish one.

By running over 100% they are effectively reducing the life span of the equipment - much like running your car at high revs all the time.

They are doing this, because if they did not - we would be, say, 6000MW short in the week.

If I am right (and I am open to correction), it is VERY scary. If we lose one of those overworked stations, we can kiss our rears goodbye.
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There are two gas generators running in the Cape that was intended to be used only in an emergency. They were not designed to run for longer than two hours at a time without maintenance. At present they are running 20 hours a day..... and is a cause of big concern for Escom engineers.
 
Anyone have a clue on how Universities will handle this? I am a student at UCT and am concerned that I might be subject to paying for a lot of non-existent lectures. I blame Eskom. Lectures cannot continue with no power these days... projectors, lights, aircon and more...
 
Dark weekend ahead?
http://www.24.com/news/?p=tsa&i=817451


Johannesburg - Power utility Eskom said that load shedding had continued from Friday morning until after evening peak and has warned that the prognosis showed a high possibility of load shedding over the weekend.
According to the national supplier, the electricity system was "extremely tight" and the pattern of load shedding is likely to remain until Thursday.

The utility said it was working with municipalities and regional disaster management committees in a bid to coordinate load-shedding schedules and manning of traffic lights during load shedding.

"We hope this will assist in minimising the inconvenience caused on the roads and improve our forewarning to electricity consumers.

"We are also taking into account suggestions from consumers in relation to our communication with consumers. Where municipalities don't have capacity to do their own load-shedding, they request Eskom to do the switching," Eskom said.

Eskom also said that the planned shut down of Koeberg's Unit 2 on Monday has been factored into the load shedding schedule, and is not expected to worsen the situation. - I-Net Bridge and News24
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I have this feeling in my stomach that something pretty bad is going to happen in the coming week.

Generally speaking South Africans are pretty apathetic, but two weeks of random on/off/on/off with the power is pushing people closer and closer to the edge where even rational people take irrational actions.

I read something about the psychological aspects of all this and it was very interesting reading (sorry forgot where it was). The sheer randomness of the power cuts effects us in more ways than we know.

If you want to torture a prisoner and throw him off guard, break his routine. Humans love routines, we live by them, but these power failures disrupt and break them and consequently it pushes them into actions they would normally not consider
 
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