poweralert....

[wingnut771]

It is also worth remembering that Eskom will probably start to load curtail more to avoid having to declare higher stages as that is politically unpalatable.

You would think they would do that before they do any loadshedding.

 

[CrypticZA]

Understood, but why the demand jump now? Stage 6 has been over a week now, and been around quite a bit over the last few months. Isn't that why some are trying to add the "cold" factor in, only other thing that's supposedly changed?

One thing I'm reminded of is how long the anc tried to hide the facts about the sabotage going on, went on for many months before they couldn't anymore. Nothing is straightforward with them.

BTW, I've heard some say elsewhere that stage 6 is the new lockdown. Given our history, who knows.. and some still think there's quiet rush jobs underway to catch up in time for winter.

CT day was fine yesterday as someone mentioned but the cold has crept in as I speak I've got a pretty nasty cold breeze coming through my window so I am sure our geyser was chowing power after loadshedding last night

 

[Brian_G]

CT day was fine yesterday as someone mentioned but the cold has crept in as I speak I've got a pretty nasty cold breeze coming through my window so I am sure our geyser was chowing power after loadshedding last night

Thanks for the info. That's a new development though..

 

[Lupus]

Understood, but why the demand jump now? Stage 6 has been over a week now, and been around quite a bit over the last few months. Isn't that why some are trying to add the "cold" factor in, only other thing that's supposedly changed?

One thing I'm reminded of is how long the anc tried to hide the facts about the sabotage going on, went on for many months before they couldn't anymore. Nothing is straightforward with them.

BTW, I've heard some say elsewhere that stage 6 is the new lockdown. Given our history, who knows.. and some still think there's quiet rush jobs underway to catch up in time for winter.

We've not had the numbers properly again, but when they do come out we do see higher then usual demand

 

[Brian_G]

We've not had the numbers properly again, but when they do come out we do see higher then usual demand

Yes, but isn't the new "extra" demand beyond that just the last couple of days?

And speaking of the devil, our LS is about to start here. Later...

 

[Lupus]

Yes, but isn't the new "extra" demand beyond that just the last couple of days?

And speaking of the devil, our LS is about to start here. Later...

Surprisingly only over the higher stages, you can see a little bit of it around stage 4, but it really ramps up at stage 5 and above.

 

[Gordon_R]

Surprisingly only over the higher stages, you can see a little bit of it around stage 4, but it really ramps up at stage 5 and above.

The peak demand is made worse by having 4 hour slots, because twice as many households are affected, and all of them will have surges for the first 30-60 mins (automatic and human) when the power resumes. It might actually benefit Eskom and consumers to have 5 or 6 times 2 hour slots in a day, or odd-hour intervals, but the logistics of doing this are problematic. Ultimately it produces diminishing returns either way.

 

[Lupus]

The peak demand is made worse by having 4 hour slots, because twice as many households are affected, and all of them will have surges for the first 30-60 mins (automatic and human) when the power resumes. It might actually benefit Eskom and consumers to have 5 or 6 times 2 hour slots in a day, or odd-hour intervals, but the logistics of doing this are problematic. Ultimately it produces diminishing returns either way.

Exactly this, as you said there are a lot more households coming back on

 

[Gordon_R]

Exactly this, as you said there are a lot more households coming back on

Load shedding assumes that demand is inflexible, and unused power is gone forever. This is only true in a trivial sense, for things such as lights and heaters. Almost everything else is subject to time shifting, particularly heavy usage such as geysers, cooking, washing, etc. An option for some is load relocation, where you move to a zone that has power, and do activities there.

The quick fixes achieved by indiscriminate load shedding of Stages 1-4 cannot be sustained at higher stages. In an absurd scenario with only an hour of power each per day, we would compress many of those things into that time period, and charge our batteries too.

 

[Lupus]

Load shedding assumes that demand is inflexible, and unused power is gone forever. This is only true in a trivial sense, for things such as lights and heaters. Almost everything else is subject to time shifting, particularly heavy usage such as geysers, cooking, washing, etc. An option for some is load relocation, where you move to a zone that has power, and do activities there.

The quick fixes achieved by indiscriminate load shedding of Stages 1-4 cannot be sustained at higher stages. In an absurd scenario with only an hour of power each per day, we would compress many of those things into that time period, and charge our batteries too.

Exactly this, yet here we have Eskom thinking it's viable to go past stage 6, probably actually why they aren't and are doing this load curtailment as they are seeing this load shifting and going well we're now just hitting diminshing returns.

 

[ajax]

Areas and schedules would need to be chopped up finer, but I don't think the grid/distribution network is conducive to this.
I can just imagine the load shifting (aka higher demand) when the 6 hour slots kick in from Stage 9. Hopefully they are aware of this problem. Agree with Gordon_R, multiple 2 hour slots would probably help here, yes.

 

[R13...]

Zapiro is obviously biased against coal because it is dirty, but in the medium term this is the best solution with the alternative being nuclear. That's if you can trust the ANC not to **** it up, but better they **** coal than nuclear.

 

[Lupus]

Areas and schedules would need to be chopped up finer, but I don't think the grid/distribution network is conducive to this.
I can just imagine the load shifting (aka higher demand) when the 6 hour slots kick in from Stage 9. Hopefully they are aware of this problem. Agree with Gordon_R, multiple 2 hour slots would probably help here, yes.

Problem is with multiple 2 hour slots with short breaks the infrastructure would pop even more, it's already not handling the 4 hour intervales.

 

[Lupus]

Zapiro is obviously biased against coal because it is dirty, but in the medium term this is the best solution with the alternative being nuclear. That's if you can trust the ANC not to **** it up, but better they **** coal than nuclear.

Everyone keeps thinking that renewables are clean and the way to go, yet we can already see many developed countries are resorting to coal again to keep the lights on.

 

[Jean Claude Vaaldamme]

With higher stages and 4hour slots there is also much more people offline. Maybe double the amount as with 2 hour slots. Because areas are overlapping. The area that normally is the 2 hours before us now share our first 2hours of being off. Then the areas that is after us, share with us being off for the second half of the 4 hour slot. So I don’t think that is what is increasing the demand. More people can now not use electricity.
The colder weather obviously had impact, but the reason for being higher than previous years I think is all the batteries for the inverters that is now getting charged when you have electricity, over and above all you normal usage.
From end of last year, the demand for all these backup system increased hugely. So we should look at the obvious first

 

[R13...]

Everyone keeps thinking that renewables are clean and the way to go, yet we can already see many developed countries are resorting to coal again to keep the lights on.

Those same cuntries are the ones pushing renewables down out throat. Renewables are all good and well and we have some of them, but they aren't saving our bacon none at the moment and won't until we start installing storage.

 

[Lupus]

With higher stages and 4hour slots there is also much more people offline. Maybe double the amount as with 2 hour slots. Because areas are overlapping. The area that normally is the 2 hours before us now share our first 2hours of being off. Then the areas that is after us, share with us being off for the second half of the 4 hour slot. So I don’t think that is what is increasing the demand. More people can now not use electricity.
The colder weather obviously had impact, but the reason for being higher than previous years I think is all the batteries for the inverters that is now getting charged when you have electricity, over and above all you normal usage.
From end of last year, the demand for all these backup system increased hugely. So we should look at the obvious first

Yes but on the flip side there are those that are coming back at the same time who wouldn't have had either, your geyser and fridge unless it's off at the wall will kick in, a lot of people will start cooking, watching TV, boiling kettles, bathing, street lights, office buildings and stuff will all kick back on, whereas before on stage 4 you'd only have 4 areas coming back at once vs 6

 

[Lupus]

Those same cuntries are the ones pushing renewables down out throat. Renewables are all good and well and we have some of them, but they aren't saving our bacon none at the moment and won't until we start installing storage.

Not even storage will save us, in order for renewables and storage to save us we'd need close to our actual entire fleet of power in renewables and storage, which would cost a considerable fortune. Everyone goes on about look they built a 170MW plant and a 100MW battery. It's like that's great we'd need 600 of those please

 

[Sinbad]

Did koeberg come back?

 

[Grieta Thanburg]

Zapiro is obviously biased against coal because it is dirty, but in the medium term this is the best solution with the alternative being nuclear. That's if you can trust the ANC not to **** it up, but better they **** coal than nuclear.

I don't always agree with Zapiro, but he does have a point here. My concerns are that coal will never be turned off.

Ideally, nuclear is the way to go, but as long as we keep extending coal, we'll never get there. It's like taping a band-aid over the red engine light, trying to push as much as you can before the car finally fails.