Someone, anyone, please take control of load shedding chaos!

Eskom cannot even organize a piss-up in a brewery, now you want them to start planning properly?
 
rpm said:
It doesn’t have to be this way.
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Nice article, but only one step away from 'finger pointing' blame is "won't someone please fix this!".

Yes - going into fixed load shedding will help in some ways, but it's still a hard political problem. Say we decide to go to fixed stage 2 -- then that decision is going to cost people with generators money with no change in how much 'hassle' they have. So that Checker's store spending R100,000 per week on fuel, won't like the fact that you decided to turn then off (costing then R10,000) when you didn't strictly need to.

So - you can plan for load-shedding to reduce hassle... that's your problem, not the rest of the world. But saying "it's easier for me if it's definitely off" passes the cost of being off on to someone else. You don't get that right sorry buddy!
 
richjdavies said:
Nice article, but only one step away from 'finger pointing' blame is "won't someone please fix this!".

Yes - going into fixed load shedding will help in some ways, but it's still a hard political problem. Say we decide to go to fixed stage 2 -- then that decision is going to cost people with generators money with no change in how much 'hassle' they have. So that Checker's store spending R100,000 per week on fuel, won't like the fact that you decided to turn then off (costing then R10,000) when you didn't strictly need to.

So - you can plan for load-shedding to reduce hassle... that's your problem, not the rest of the world. But saying "it's easier for me if it's definitely off" passes the cost of being off on to someone else. You don't get that right sorry buddy!
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3-6 months of controlled and reliable load shedding so that eskom can repair and maintain generators will be far less painful than several years of the current sporadic load shedding. Often, when the stage changes up or down, an area which just finished their load shedding slot can get smacked again - that is exponentially worse for business!
 
Yeah some kind of strategic planning beyond talk of a warroom would be nice.
 
FlashSA said:
3-6 months of controlled and reliable load shedding so that eskom can repair and maintain generators will be far less painful than several years of the current sporadic load shedding. Often, when the stage changes up or down, an area which just finished their load shedding slot can get smacked again - that is exponentially worse for business!
Click to expand...

If 3-6 months of controlled and reliable load shedding would without a shadow of a doubt give eksdom some form of wiggle-room to do what they need to do (and not give them 3-6 months of extra time to waste), then I'd be willing to start to accept this strain of thought. Our problem at home/work is that loadshedding leads to loss of time/income as no matter what the stage, some primetime gets cut somewhere. It is not always a simple matter of merely getting a generator. So it will be difficult to convince me to accept fixed loadshedding when it is not strictly "necessary".

Re: double-whammy loadshedding ... I have never seen this happen. At least not on the Eskom or COCT schedules for this side of the country. Stage 3 should merely load onto Stage 2 that merely loads onto Stage 1.
 
The City of Cape Town is the WORST! The schedule is so messed up. Why cant they just have the same time slot every day?

My clients have spent a fortune on UPS's and we load them to give the 2-3hrs needed. But what happens is they get shed 8pm-10pm and the next day they shed from 8am-10am so there isn't enough time for them to charge up the batteries again so BANG after an hour!

Give us the same time so there is 24hrs (22hrs) between outages - every one knows when their time is, no confusion - how bloody hard is that ????
 
Ivork said:
The City of Cape Town is the WORST! The schedule is so messed up. Why cant they just have the same time slot every day?
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Yeah, no... Great if your slot is 6-8.30 in the morning before they activate the load shedding, epically shyte when it's everyday from 18-20.30...

Stage 1(or even 2) loadshedding everyday on a rotational schedule for the next 6 months and then re-evaluate. However the political will is not there for this so we're ****ed.

PS: should've supplied UPS's with faster chargers, not Eskom's fault, is your clients and yours for not researching how long it takes to recharge.
 
Ivork said:
The City of Cape Town is the WORST! The schedule is so messed up. Why cant they just have the same time slot every day?

My clients have spent a fortune on UPS's and we load them to give the 2-3hrs needed. But what happens is they get shed 8pm-10pm and the next day they shed from 8am-10am so there isn't enough time for them to charge up the batteries again so BANG after an hour!

Give us the same time so there is 24hrs (22hrs) between outages - every one knows when their time is, no confusion - how bloody hard is that ????
Click to expand...

Bad luck for your client, great for the rest of us thank you. Do you want to be the idiot who is shed every day 18:00-20:00 or 20:00-22:00? CoT's schedule is punctual...and fair.
 
Please can someone explain the 'Poweralert' page, bar-graph thing... Makes little/no sense to me...
Capture.jpg
Red, Black... It doesn't seem to matter how high the graph really is
 
Ivork said:
The City of Cape Town is the WORST! The schedule is so messed up. Why cant they just have the same time slot every day?

My clients have spent a fortune on UPS's and we load them to give the 2-3hrs needed. But what happens is they get shed 8pm-10pm and the next day they shed from 8am-10am so there isn't enough time for them to charge up the batteries again so BANG after an hour!

Give us the same time so there is 24hrs (22hrs) between outages - every one knows when their time is, no confusion - how bloody hard is that ????
Click to expand...

Well that doesnt work either, because then some people are load shedded 10:00am - 14:30pm (while they are all at work), while others get load shedded 6pm-10:30pm everyday.

EDIT: What "ScottulusMaximus" and "Undesign" said :)
 
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undesign said:
Bad luck for your client, great for the rest of us thank you. Do you want to be the idiot who is shed every day 18:00-20:00 or 20:00-22:00? CoT's schedule is punctual...and fair.
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I live in an area in Cape Town that hasn't been load-shed at all yet...
But I'm too scared to mention it publically, for fear of being switched off.
 
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undesign said:
Bad luck for your client, great for the rest of us thank you. Do you want to be the idiot who is shed every day 18:00-20:00 or 20:00-22:00? CoT's schedule is punctual...and fair.
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Tshwane Municipality has a zone that is scheduled for 6:00 - 8:00 and then from 12:00 - 14:00. And another zone that is scheduled from 8:00 - 10:00 and 18:00 to 20:00. Which means that the one is never touched and the other perpetually in the dark at essential times. Not very fair to anyone. Some kind of slipping schedule for a few months that is adhered strictly to and get the maintenance done.

One can work through it, if you can plan. As it is, no one can plan and many carry an inordinate share of the burden.
 
Ivork said:
The City of Cape Town is the WORST! The schedule is so messed up. Why cant they just have the same time slot every day?

My clients have spent a fortune on UPS's and we load them to give the 2-3hrs needed. But what happens is they get shed 8pm-10pm and the next day they shed from 8am-10am so there isn't enough time for them to charge up the batteries again so BANG after an hour!

Give us the same time so there is 24hrs (22hrs) between outages - every one knows when their time is, no confusion - how bloody hard is that ????
Click to expand...

Worst? Clealy you do not have a lot of experience with what is happening in the rest of the country.

The rotating schedule of city of cape town is probably the most fair way of doing it.

Our 6000ah battery system recharges in 4 to 5 hours. Your UPS's charger is probably too small for the battery. That and the battery pack is probably too small. Best to spec them 50% larger than you need to account for battery aging and improving the lifespan of the batteries. Sealed lead acids dont like being discharged below 20% on a regular basis. It also allows for quicker charging up to the minimum levels you require.

In your case however, provided that the first load shed is in the evening. Have your equipment power down for outages outside of business hours to preserve battery power for outages during working hours.
 
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Ivork said:
The City of Cape Town is the WORST! The schedule is so messed up. Why cant they just have the same time slot every day?
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Because, want sommer.

That would make it unfair and racist. Yea, racist. The previous schedule had a fixed time slot for every day of the week and cosatu etc etc complained that this was racist so they changed it this time around so that 'everyone' kinda gets a chance to be off in a certain time slot. The eskom schedule follows a day 1,2,3,4 schedule that is closer to what you probably would prefer. Although your perfect municipality would probably be Hessequa. In stage 1 and 2 the time slots are fixed and only every second day. Only on stage 3 does it move to every day.
 
ld13 said:
If 3-6 months of controlled and reliable load shedding would without a shadow of a doubt give eksdom some form of wiggle-room to do what they need to do (and not give them 3-6 months of extra time to waste), then I'd be willing to start to accept this strain of thought. Our problem at home/work is that loadshedding leads to loss of time/income as no matter what the stage, some primetime gets cut somewhere. It is not always a simple matter of merely getting a generator. So it will be difficult to convince me to accept fixed loadshedding when it is not strictly "necessary".

Re: double-whammy loadshedding ... I have never seen this happen. At least not on the Eskom or COCT schedules for this side of the country. Stage 3 should merely load onto Stage 2 that merely loads onto Stage 1.
Click to expand...

Its definately happened, it happened to me ... Effectively Stage 2 has me load shedding 1 / 2 times per day, depending on exactly where my first slot fits .. ive been shed in stage 2 in the morning, then the stage 1 kicked in, and I got shafted in the afternoon, then shafted again later when it went back to stage 2 ... All besides the point, to be fair it was before the new schedule in Feb for Cape Town, and hasnt happened since .. but I think people are missing the point.

If Eskom project the need for stage 2 for the week, they should announce stage 2, and everyone can plan accordingly .. if they made a mistake, and there is no need to shed, then instead of stepping down to stage 1 .. they just dont shed 1 area that was meant to shed in that timeslot .. bonus for them .. the problem is, people check the web in the morning, find out its going to be stage 1 .. then they check the schedule, and plan accordingly .... this is not the issue .. the proplem is when the expectation is that you were going to have power to do kids homework, then get home to a new stage, and realise to have to bundle the kids to go to your moms for baths and homework .. wouldve been much easier, if Id asked my Mom to pick up the kids and Id meet her at her place ...

Obviously this is just an example .. but my point stands ... knowing whether or not you are expecting a cut at 1 in the afternoon .. is relevant nomatter who you are... if you actually get shed or not.. is a different problem..
 
I get the impression that Eskom think its less of an impact to shed on the weekend to build up reserves so that weekday users have more diesel or hydro in reserve .. do they even care that retail makes about 70% of their revenue on the weekend ?
 
maybe because retail can easily change their patterns, unlike industry, who need to work at very fixed schedules.

its much easier for shoppers to adjust their shopping hours.
 
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