SA grid not bad, for a third world state

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Sly21C

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Despite threatened power outages, consulting firm Accenture says Eskom has performed better in keeping the lights on than most other developing countries during the past three years.

SA first experienced rolling blackouts in 2008 after seasonal maintenance and technical difficulties.

Eskom has again warned that the risk of outages is high, owing to extensive maintenance being carried out this summer.

Eskom spokeswoman Hillary Joffe said the country is running on a margin of as little as 2% and the utility has urged all users to cut power use by at least 10%.

Accenture senior executive Ken Robinson said good planning by Eskom has proved critical in avoiding blackouts during the past three years, which was more than could be said for India and China. Both have been plagued with power cuts, especially during winter.

"India only has about five times South Africa's generation capacity, but sits with a population 20 times that of South Africa's, making extended power cuts a daily occurrence," said Robinson.

Earlier this month police in India shot dead a demonstrator during a protest against prolonged power outages. Protests have become common in a country that has to deal with outages of between eight and 16 hours a day in extreme winter conditions.

China, the world's second-biggest economy, is building additional power capacity at a rapid rate. However, Robinson said the Asian giant is still battling with blackouts owing to high demand, especially during its very cold winter.

In December, Brazil's Rio de Janeiro had to go without power for two days.

"In comparison South Africa has not been doing too badly," said Robinson. "South Africa, China and India, especially, have a real opportunity to work together on research programmes on cleaner coal technologies and solutions.

"These three are still very dependent on coal for electricity and will be for many years to come. Considering the possibility of future carbon taxes, I think that this is an opportunity to turn the Brics concept into something real," said Robinson.
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http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/2012/01/22/sa-grid-not-bad-for-a-third-world-state

Seems Eskom is not doing too badly compared to other third world countries.

I wonder though why consumers are not reducing their electricity consumption by 10%? The professional complainers in this forum might respond that it is because of government's disastrous planning which led to the 2008 electricity crises and Eskom's current request for consumers to reduce electricity usage, so therefore they won't reduce their electricity consumption so that a finger can be pointed at Eskom. Fair comment but the fact is if consumers don't reduce electricity consumption then load-shedding will occur. Government is doing something by providing free solar water heaters to RDP houses so that electricity usage on the grid can be minimized.
 
In what world do you live in dude? Consumers have more than doubled the "reduce by 10%" campaign from Eskom... It's big industries like smelters who uses up to 60% of the grid and pays 1/100th of what we pay for electricity that's the issue at hand. Those contracts should be "abolished" and they should pull their weight. They're using cheap labor/electricity to smelt ore and ship it elsewhere... and since they're doing that, they don't pay tax (AFAIK, could be wrong, but there was a big debate about this)

IMO, when Eskom told the public to reduce their consumption, and the public DID, Eskom shat their pants by going "Oh noes, we not making enough money!" So now they had to run to government/world bank for loans AND hike electricity prices by 33%

It's like me selling banana's telling the people who buy from me not to buy so much. In the end I'll have less people buying my bananas and making less profit.

It would appear that greed outweighs logic in this country by 100 fold
 
The reason Eskom has done so well is because, surprise surprise, the ANC inherited a first-world power grid... which it then proceeded to run into the ground with Affirmative Action and no maintenance. I have a relative who has worked at Eskom for 2 decades who is so afraid of the incompetence of the people being hired, that he is going to take early pension and emigrate.
 
Oh, and let's not forget the electric being exported to our neighbours like Zimbabwe, who I'm sure are using a lot more than 10% of the grid while not paying anywhere NEAR what us consumers are being charged.
 
AcidRaZor said:
In what world do you live in dude? Consumers have more than doubled the "reduce by 10%" campaign from Eskom... It's big industries like smelters who uses up to 60% of the grid and pays 1/100th of what we pay for electricity that's the issue at hand. Those contracts should be "abolished" and they should pull their weight. They're using cheap labour/electricity to smelt ore and ship it elsewhere... and since they're doing that, they don't pay tax (AFAIK, could be wrong, but there was a big debate about this)

IMO, when Eskom told the public to reduce their consumption, and the public DID, Eskom shat their pants by going "Oh noes, we not making enough money!" So now they had to run to government/world bank for loans AND hike electricity prices by 33%

It's like me selling banana's telling the people who buy from me not to buy so much. In the end I'll have less people buying my bananas and making less profit.

It would appear that greed outweighs logic in this country by 100 fold
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Well said ! I could not have put it better myself.

Why don't South Africans complain and do something about the proliferation of aluminium smelters in this country. They are the major culprits and most countries wont allow aluminium smelters to be built in their countries.

The aluminium ore is imported into the country, processed and then exported. At the end of the day there is minimal benefit for the country as job creation is minimal and what about all the industrial pollution?

There are about 6 000 to 8 000 jobs in all the aluminium smelters in South Africa and at what cost to the environment of our beautiful country ?

Here is an interesting article : http://www.environment.co.za/poison...melters-the-developmental-state-gone-mad.html

I think the only benefit is the bribes to our corrupt politicians who allowed this to happen.

My own silent protest is whenever I buy prepared food at the supermarkets, I ask that my stuff be put in bags and not aluminium foil dishes where possible. After all, a used foil or grease-proof bag is far better than an aluminium foil container on a refuse dump. I am no tree hugger, but if everyone insisted on packets instead of aluminium containers (where possible) just think of how much less harm we can do to the environment.
 
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The_Assimilator said:
The reason Eskom has done so well is because, surprise surprise, the ANC inherited a first-world power grid... which it then proceeded to run into the ground with Affirmative Action and no maintenance. I have a relative who has worked at Eskom for 2 decades who is so afraid of the incompetence of the people being hired, that he is going to take early pension and emigrate.
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The technical term for a poorly trained/incompetant High voltage electrician is "Dead".

The same thing BTW happenned in Spoornet.
 
@Alf101

I am sorry but I have never seen so much bull being spilled here on myBB. What logic are you using. Typical mentality.

How can you compare South Africa's grid 20 years ago with 1st world countries when those first world countries were providing power to all their citizen, not providing power based on the pigmentation of their skins.:mad:

Next time think before posting $hit
 
news24 said:
How can you justify a power grid as superior when all citizens do not have access to it?
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It can be made simple.

What happens when your boss replaces a few competent employees with a few incompetent ones? Does the office run as well?

The ANC has had 18 years to upgrade the old grid with forward investments and planning, the current situation did not occur in one moment. Failing to plan and invest properly is simply not good enough when thousands of experts can be paid to do the planning properly.

Saying our power grid is good by third world standards is a ridiculous cop out. Making excuses for any governmental incompetence will never be good enough.
 
alf101 said:
So we are comparing it to 3rd world countries now when we were better off than 1st world countries 20 years ago?
Same with transnet, infrastructure, hospitals etc.

Just lower the standards...
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education... etc, etc. the list is endless.

At least now we have a few rich elite while many of the poor are worse off, and I've seen quite a few posters saying they were better off under apartheid :rolleyes:
 
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alf101 said:
So we are comparing it to 3rd world countries now when we were better off than 1st world countries 20 years ago?
Same with transnet, infrastructure, hospitals etc.

Just lower the standards...
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Let me address this as best as an uneducated black twit can.

Definition of power grid.
Also know as electric power transmission Process of transferring electric energy from one point to another in an electric power system.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/electric-power-transmission#ixzz1kM2mNwap

is the bulk transfer of electrical energy, from generating power plants to electrical substations located near demand centers. This is distinct from the local wiring between high-voltage substations and customers, which is typically referred to as electric power distribution. Transmission lines, when interconnected with each other, become transmission networks
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Now that is out of the way. There is no contest, the Apartheid government did build a high capacity network, it was producing way more than it could consume.

Before 1994, only 36% of the population had access to the Power grid, now more that 80% of the population have access to electricity. Access to electricity means access to the power grid, you cannot have the former without the latter. You have to be really naive to think the Apartheid grid was better than today's grid. Again I am referring to power grid not power generation.

Most of the 1st world countries had near 100% power penetration, how can that compare with 36%? Only in the world of the delusional.
 
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Anyone who thinks SA is third world need to leave their moms basement.

3rd world they seldom have fancy things like roads or electricity.
 
I live in the first world, but the majority of SA live in the third world.
 
Great... so we're being compared to third world now :rolleyes:

Wonder when they'll update the wiki maps to reflect accordingly.
 
The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either capitalism and NATO (which along with its allies represented the First World), or communism and the Soviet Union (which along with its allies represented the Second World). This definition provided a way of broadly categorizing the nations of the earth into three groups based on social, political, and economic divisions. Due to many of the Third World countries being extremely poor, it became a stereotype such that people commonly refer to undeveloped countries as "third world countries".[citation needed] Third World countries included most of Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The term is often used in a pejorative way.
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Interesting and true. BS terminology.
 
Speaking of race ..

The power crisis of last week was caused by the combination of low stockpiles of coal, the long-term power squeeze, and the consequences of Eskom's pathological racial procurement policies.
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From the politicsweb link in alf's post.
 
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