Rolling black-outs - Eskom

[Mr_B]

Sounds good, but the part about cycling the power supply to a residence on/off up to 5 times sounds very bad! I've heard of alot of appliances being damaged with the current regime of loadshedding... it recently killed my house alarm pc board! I can imagine that this will kill even more appliances! Will Eskom be paying out claims for these damages? I think not.

[ChrisF]

Sounds good, but the part about cycling the power supply to a residence on/off up to 5 times sounds very bad! I've heard of alot of appliances being damaged with the current regime of loadshedding... it recently killed my house alarm pc board! I can imagine that this will kill even more appliances! Will Eskom be paying out claims for these damages? I think not.

Bought UPS units in 2008 - not for the backup, purely to protect my electronic devices.


These repetative load sheds are killing my UPS units though !!! A traditional UPS unit cant re-charge fast enough, thus by the second or third load shed in 24 hours the battery is totally depleted ....


I have replaced a few batteries, and last month even replaced one of the UPS units.



Next move is to buy a PROPER UPS unit :
MicroCare 1kW (1,2kVA), 200A.h 24 system, with a charger that CAN recharge the batteries between load sheds.

With the batteries you can buy these from MicroCare at about R10k.

Who wants to buy my 2,5kW Honda Genny ???

[Mud Dog]

How did Eskom land up in this week’s mess?
(Hilton Tarrant)


Just before the Easter long weekend, Eskom ramped up the amount of generation capacity taken offline for planned maintenance by 40%. This was a substantial move (and a very belated positive one). In practical terms, planned maintenance had been hovering around the 4000MW-4500MW mark and this was increased to over 6000MW on the Thursday before Easter.

This was absolutely the right thing to do, given that electricity demand would drop significantly over the long weekend as large industrial users shut down. (Bear in mind that there’s still the 900MW from Koeberg offline till the end of May, meaning that even with an increase to 6000MW, the real maintenance happening on Eskom’s legacy coal fleet is closer to 5000MW – or at 5500MW, closer to 4500MW.)

More planned maintenance, more load shedding

The problem, however, is that since Easter, Eskom has battled to get planned maintenance back down to what had become ‘normal’ levels (in the 4000MW range). Planned maintenance was at 5459MW on last Thursday (April 9), at 5364MW this Monday (April 13) and 5471MW as at today. Eskom does not have the headroom to do this amount of maintenance, without load shedding or without unplanned outages dropping significantly (and remaining )

Now this could mean a number of things. One – Eskom has realised that it hasn’t been doing enough maintenance during summer, and that maintenance would have to be kept at these elevated levels for the foreseeable future. Two – Eskom hasn’t been able to restore generation capacity that has been undergoing planned maintenance as quickly as it had planned. In other words, whatever it has been fixing has taken longer to fix than it originally thought. Three – Eskom misread the reliability and performance of the rest of its fleet and took the chance to ramp up maintenance.

In all honesty, the most likely answer is a combination of all three.

The quandary for Eskom all along is that it has to do proper maintenance when it takes any plant out of commission. There are (more than) some hints that it has continued to rush maintenance and force plant back online to make up for a shortfall due to unplanned outages.

Unusually high capacity forecasts

Then there’s the curious situation over Easter, where Eskom originally forecast it would have over 34000MW of capacity on April 2, 3, 4 and 5 – this despite the elevated levels of planned maintenance. Days later, it was revised lower these to anywhere from 31500MW to 33500MW. In the original forecast, it expected to have 34943MW and 34884MW available on the Thursday and Friday! (We don’t know what capacity it actually had, because Eskom didn’t publish a status bulletin on Monday (given that it was a public holiday) – but this is entirely academic given the far lower than average demand.)

But the last (and only other) time that Eskom forecast it would have anything close to 35000MW of capacity was on February 21 and 22. The original forecast was revised lower to ±27500MW for that weekend, and demand was forced lower (it did not use open cycle gas turbines). It’s difficult to figure out what happened in both these cases. How did Eskom arrive at the over-generous supply forecasts in the first place? Based on that, did Eskom look at these and decide to use the window to do additional planned maintenance?

Predicting this week’s near-constant load shedding

What happened this week, where load shedding was in place from 6am on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (and from 4pm on Monday and 10am on Sunday), was downright predictable. Planned maintenance is still at stubbornly high levels. (This is good news, especially for winter). The fact that Eskom was able to make the call and announce load shedding from 6am on the night before each of these days is telling. But, if it was forced into Stage 2 from as early as 6am, the supply situation was bad. (Thankfully, it ran Stage 1 from 6am on Thursday, meaning it had found another 1000MW (or some diesel).)

However, the situation on Wednesday was downright bizarre. In the morning, it had managed to restore 1200MW of capacity (2 x 600MW) from the 9500MW unplanned outages. It confirmed then that planned maintenance stood at around 5000MW. Yet, by the afternoon it was forced into Stage 3 load shedding (where it removes up to 4000MW of demand).

Do the maths…. There was 9500MW of unplanned outages + 5000MW of planned maintenance as of Wednesday morning. Stage 2 load shedding meant a foreseeable shortfall (at peak) of 2000MW.

But, 1200MW of the unplanned outages were restored during the course of the morning. This left a new theoretical shortfall of 800MW (call it 1000MW), but load shedding wasn’t downgraded to Stage 1. Instead, load shedding was escalated to Stage 3 by 4pm.

This meant Eskom lost the equivalent of all of the capacity it had managed to restore (1200MW) plus another thousand megawatts (or two).

In its status bulletin published yesterday, Eskom says it there was peak demand (“reduced down”) of 27451MW with available capacity of 29301MW on Wednesday.

Something, somewhere does not quite add up.

So how did capacity disappear on Wednesday?

Business Day says it was able to “build a picture of what transpired” and that Eskom reached the “tail-end of… [the] diesel supplies” for its open cycle gas turbines. Compounding this was the depletion of “pumped storage capacity” earlier in the week. This is (somewhat) good news. It means that Eskom didn’t lose any more capacity from its coal fleet.

In fact, Thursday’s system status bulletin further corroborates this, except its not evident Eskom even had the luxury of the “tail-end of diesel supplies”. In the bulletin, Eskom says available capacity on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week was met “considering primary energy constraints”. This is code for ‘we did not run the open cycle gas turbines’. Curiously, it now references a demand picture “excluding load shedding” which is not really a demand picture at all – more on this next week.

Referring to the investigation underway while four executives are suspended, Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown said in her press briefing on Wednesday that she is ”digging deep into Eskom for three months to find factual information about what is happening at Eskom”.

“I want a deep dive into Eskom. Don't you? Don't you want to know what's inside Eskom. It's one of the third largest utilities of its kind in the world. That's why I am only giving them three months. At least I want to know its liquidity. I want to know how the maintenance is going.”

So the minister and department doesn’t know “how the maintenance is going”?! And the war room? Do they know? Does Eskom itself know? This is the hauntingly worrying part of the minister’s pronouncements.

Brown also said on Wednesday: “I think we need to stick to maintenance – even in winter.”

Hallelujah! Back in February, I called for Eskom to load shed daily until May. This was poo-pooed (indirectly, of course). Seems the reality of the situation is finally obvious to government.

I’ll repeat what I said on Monday: “Get the ramp up of Medupi Unit 6 right, and get some of that planned maintenance done (properly!), and we’ll be alright for winter. Don’t, and watch the unplanned outages and general unpredictability rocket upwards because Eskom simply hasn’t had the headroom to get plant fixed. The vicious circle it’s been battling against all summer will continue.”

At this point, the sane path is to continue doing maintenance during winter. Eskom did so last year. Let’s see which route is chosen…

[Mud Dog]

Energy procurement in highest gear
(Antoinette Slabbert)

The 13 successful renewable bidders* announced by Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson on Thursday will start commissioning in November next year, supplying a total of 1 121 MW to the energy-starved Eskom grid.

Added to the 4 322 MW of renewable power generation already procured during the past four years (excluding the latest 13), it represents a total investment of R168 billion in renewable energy, the minister said. (Note, Eskom’s Medupi project will ultimately have a generation capacity of 4 800 MW.

She said further awards will be made by May in the current bid window, while a further 1 800 MW will be procured during an expedited procurement process from unsuccessful bidders from all four bid rounds of the department’s renewable energy procurement programme. The request for proposals will be issued in June.

Requests for proposals in the fifth bid window will be issued in the second quarter of 2016.

The department will expand the renewable programme by submitting a determination of a further 6 300 MW of renewable energy to be procured from independent power producers (IPPs) to national energy regulator Nersa, which has to issue generations licences.

In a separate programme, the department has received 29 bids from small-scale IPPs for projects totaling 139 MW. These projects can generate between 1 MW and 5 MW of electricity each and the department is currently seeking to procure 50 MW of the intended ultimate total of 200 MW.

The department is simplifying this procurement process and is working with National Treasury to encourage development funders to create a funding mechanism for these small-scale developers, Joemat-Pettersson said.

Coal, gas

A request for proposals for gas generation projects aimed at procuring 3 126 MW will be issued by the end of this month.

Joemat-Pettersson said bids for the first window of coal IPPs are expected by the middle of this year. The department will procure a total of 2 500 MW in units of 600 MW each.

A request for proposals for 800 MW of co-generation will be issued this month and preferred bidders are set to be announced in the third quarter. The amount procured may be increased, says Joemat-Pettersson.

The department has further assessed 150 responses to its invitation for proposals for demand reduction, load shifting and energy efficiency. Forty-two medium-term opportunities have been identified and procurement will start in the second half of the year.

On the regional front, South Africa signed a treaty in March with the Democratic Republic of the Congo to import 2 500 MW of hydro power from phase three of its Inga project and has the right of first refusal on 30% of capacity in future phases. Officials of the two countries met in Pretoria this week to conclude project agreements to give affect to the treaty, she said.



*The 13 successful bidders are:

Biomass:

Ngodwana Energy Project 25MW

On-shore wind:

Karusa Wind Farm 140 MW

Nxuba Wind Farm 140 MW

Golden Valley Wind 117 MW

Oyster Bay Wind Farm 140 MW

Solar PV:

Sirius Solar PV Project 75 MW

Droogfontein 2 Solar 75 MW

Dayson’s Klip 1 75 MW

Dayson’s Klip 2 75 MW

Konkoonsies II Solar Facility 75 MW

Aggeneys Solar Project 40 MW

Hydro:

Kruisvallei Hydro 5 MW

[ChrisF]

Andy now add to this that the Germans have provided funding to the tune of R9B for the expansion of the transmission grid - in order to connect these new power plants to the main grid.


Awarding tenders now, and expecting commissioning in 18 months ... uhm ja .... the tender process, remember these bidders now need to get designs done and get builders on board ... THIS is easily another year. The ON-SITE of a recent wind farm was 18 months.



Then also remember that once Medupi WORKS that it is a constant power source. The solar farms are effective for 6 hours per day = thus devide the capacity by four ...

Wind farms are hardly consistent either ....


YES, let's save the planet, and go green ... but one should be carefull in making comparisons between "useable" energy of the one vs the other type of generation ....

so a slightly more realistic "effective" output might be

biomass - 25MW all time

wind - 730MW MAX delivery ...on average probably only 300 to 500MW day and night delivery

Solar - 340MW ... day time only, for about 6 hours per day .... AND, this falls outside the peak demand hours ... at least it is power that CAN be used to keep industry going :)

Hydro .... no extra power from these .... infact it SUCKS power at a rate of 3 to 1 to assist in emergency delivery during peak hours ... so this 5MW is actually a 15MW DRAIN on the system.


so if we are lucky this is maybe 900MW of PEAK power for 6 hours a day. And maybe 350MW as a low figure (when we have load shedding at home)


would LOVE to know how much power we could get from nuclear energy for this money ....

[dalkill]

power supply on dstv blew last night
sisters modem busted

last month TV blew, twice... but this was while TV on and not when power went back on.
but i presume that the constant surges weakens the components.

time to invest in surge protectors / UPS

[Mud Dog]

power supply on dstv blew last night
sisters modem busted

last month TV blew, twice... but this was while TV on and not when power went back on.
but i presume that the constant surges weakens the components.

time to invest in surge protectors / UPS

Yep, a decent UPS is the way to go.

[dalkill]

i'm trying to figure out what is the best protection to use.

I don't really need power during loadshedding. Gas stove and lamps enough for us. No need for TV / internet etc.

I just want something to protect my stuff including fridges / stoves etc.

I was thinking a whole house surge protection unit. Something you connect to the mains coming in from the street to take the brunt of the spike when power turned back on?

[dcsmax]

i'm trying to figure out what is the best protection to use.

IUD

[dalkill]

i'm trying to figure out what is the best protection to use.

IUD

already took care of that after the twins

[Warrior]

.

[Stef]

Apparently with stage 5 load shedding Escom comes to your house...and blow out your candles!!!

[Family_Dog]

Yes indeed, and they also remove the batteries from your torch! ;)


-F_D

[Mud Dog]

To prepay or not to prepay Eskom – that is the question…
(Chris Yelland).


In the first two weeks of his appointment, some questionable public statements made by Eskom’s new acting CEO Brian Molefe makes one wonder whether he is receiving sound information from his executive team. Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown seems to have had similar problems.

After a presentation to the public enterprises parliamentary portfolio committee, and a media briefing thereafter that reeked of unfounded confidence and hubris, Molefe suggested that the solution to Eskom’s financial woes would be to bypass municipal electricity distributors and supply all customers with electricity in South Africa – domestic, commercial, agricultural and industrial – directly, thus extending its monopoly.

Local government, in the form of municipalities, have the constitutional right to distribute electricity. Like Eskom distribution, they purchase electricity in bulk from Eskom, operate a distribution network, and deliver electricity to residents and businesses embedded in their geographic service areas. Municipalities use surpluses from this activity to cross-subsidise and fund their other municipal service delivery obligations.

While the problems of some 20 defaulting municipalities out of a total of some 180 has been well publicised, it must certainly be galling to the significant majority of municipal electricity distributors to hear that the failing Eskom wants to bypass them all in order to use their surpluses to sort out its own financial problems.

This especially as Eskom’s own performance in distributing electricity direct to domestic and commercial businesses in areas such as Soweto is among the very worst of them all, with theft and non-payment amounting to some 83% of electricity supplied direct to the residents and commercial businesses in Soweto by Eskom. Indeed, with no end in sight, Eskom’s own theft and non-payment financial problem in Soweto alone is bigger than its non-payment problem with all 20 defaulting municipalities combined.

Molefe went on further to suggest that all Eskom customers, large and small, that currently have credit meters, and pay for electricity monthly on a 30-day credit account, should be required to change to prepayment meters. His rationale was that this would quickly resolve Eskom’s cash-flow crisis by bringing forward some two months' revenue, amounting to about R20 billion, into Eskom’s depleted coffers.

Is it conceivable that Molefe and his executives are unaware that Eskom's existing domestic, commercial, agricultural and industrial customers have to make a prepaid deposit amounting to three months' electricity usage before opening a 30-day credit account? As such, electricity customers on credit meters effectively prepay even more than customers on prepayment meters, who do not pay this three-month deposit.

This means that if all credit customers were to change to prepayment meters as suggested by Molefe, the three-month prepaid deposits for credit customers would presumably have to be refunded, which would mean that Eskom's cash flow crisis may in fact worsen rather than improve.

Finally, Molefe appears to have been led to believe that prepayment meters are somehow a panacea for all the revenue protection and collection problems experienced by Eskom Distribution and municipal electricity distributors.

This is strange, because prepayment meters were pioneered by Eskom itself in the early 1990s, and have been around for decades, alongside credit meters. Strange too, because Eskom’s long experience with both prepayment and credit meters shows that there are areas with prepayment meters having good levels of non-technical losses, and other with poor levels. The same applies to areas with credit meters.

Thus it is clear that successful revenue protection and collection are not simply a choice of meter technology, but a holistic approach where both prepayment and credit meters, and a whole range of good management, performance monitoring, credit control and enforcement practices form part of the solution.

A number of regulated tariff options, including those involving both prepayment and credit meters, are currently available and approved by energy regulator Nersa, and it would certainly not be left to Eskom’s whim or discretion to force a credit customer onto a prepayment tariff without good reason, simply to suit Eskom’s financial needs.

After neglecting the theft and non-payment of electricity in Soweto and other problematic areas for decades, there is simply no quick fix as Molefe seems to believe. The solutions will require a long haul, with commitment and support from national and local government politicians, the cabinet, relevant government departments, Nersa, Eskom, municipalities, the police, courts and correctional services.

*Chris Yelland is the investigative editor of EE Publishers

[ChrisF]

pre-paid vs meter has been a hot topic since its inception .... and most interesting how the authorities have amended their "stories" over the years to get us to go pre-paid ....


in the 80's they said that pre-paid power cost LESS per unit than metered - and it did AT THE TIME. People lined up to apply .... only regular late payers got free units ..... good payers could not get the free units and had to pay steep for the benefit of a pre-paid meter.

This was also the time when new builds started using pre-paid.

Then ever so quietly the rates were adjusted and pre-paid and metered pay exactly PER UNIT for power.



Somewhere in its history the "story" became fact that pre-paid meant eskom got their money sooner - BS !!

For logistic reasons both eskom and municipalities got the corner store and garage to re-sell the prepaid power - and immediately a percentage of money is LOST to eskom.

Now eskom/municipality has to bill the re-seller who has 30 to 60 days POST bill date to pay over the money.

we are talking BIG money here !!! It makes sense to NOT pay over, but rather accumulate interest, for as long as possible ....


Friend worked as an internal auditor for a large municipality. You are going to CRY when you realise the amount of money certain re-sellers DONT pay over .... and for "various reasons" some dont get prosecuted and the bad debt gets out of control ...




pre-paid has its place. but is just another step on the ladder rife with corruption !!

[dalkill]

eish... i'll take a dozen please.

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=39000" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Mud Dog]

Dear Eskom, how many megawatts do you really have?
(Antoinette Slabbert)


Eskom made a big fuss about its ‘maintenance festival’ a week or two ago.

Having followed the downs and especially the ups in the utility’s euphemistically named ‘unplanned outages’ (breakdowns) as reported in the system status bulletins Eskom issues twice a week, I waited with great expectation on Monday May 4, to see the new numbers.

“How many megawatts of generation capacity have we gained?” I wondered.

Great was my surprise when it landed in my inbox and I learnt we were in a worse position than before the ‘maintenance festival’ – 127 MW less, to be precise. It may not sound like much, but keeping in mind that 100 MW is enough to power 80 000 average households, it is definitely not insignificant.

I decided to take a closer look.

From an analysis of the status bulletins issued directly before, during and after the maintenance festival, as well as press releases about its success, a few questions arose.

Capacity

Firstly, what is the total capacity potentially available to Eskom?

I argued that the sum of available capacity and the capacity out due to planned and unplanned outages should represent all the potentially available capacity. I also assumed that this number should be consistent, unless a new source of energy becomes available.

We know that any major boosts to the grid would be from Medupi and Kusile and sadly these projects are only expected to be completed in 2020 and 2021 respectively.

While some renewable projects are coming online, their capacity is fairly small. Sere Wind Farm’s total capacity, for example, will only be 100 MW.

Moneyweb earlier reported that Eskom got approval to renew and extend short-term power purchase agreements to a total of 1 359 MW for the current financial year. The conclusion of these contracts may therefore also increase the Eskom capacity, but only by that number.

I was therefore surprised to see the sum of available capacity, planned outages and unplanned outages drop from 41 160MW on April 23 (before the maintenance festival), to 40 193MW on April 30 between the two long weekends and rise to 43 035MW thereafter on May 4.

Questions

On May 4 I sent Eskom questions about this, but I am yet to receive a response. Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe also couldn’t give an explanation. He said Eskom’s own installed capacity is about 41 500 MW and the 43 000 MW often quoted includes 1 500 MW imported from Mozambique.

On May 7 the available capacity, planned outages and unplanned outages as stated in the latest system status bulletin totalled 44 430 MW!

It is also worth noting that energy regulator Nersa in its latest system adequacy outlook puts Eskom’s own generation capacity at 44 752 MW, imports at 1 500 MW and total available capacity at 49 291 MW. This includes power purchases, renewable energy (calculated at 20% to allow for intermittency) and energy from “other sources”.

Nersa calculates this from information supplied by Eskom.

Maybe there is a simple explanation, but Eskom was not forthcoming with any. If it does respond, Moneyweb will publish it accordingly.

Maintenance festival

I next looked at Eskom’s report on its ‘maintenance festivals’. These numbers made more sense and are quite encouraging.

From the April 23 system status bulletin it seemed Eskom went into the exercise with 29 990 MW available capacity, 5 885 MW out on planned maintenance and 5 285 MW on unplanned outages.

On April 28, it reported: “Eskom’s maintenance teams worked hard over the long weekend and were able to perform planned maintenance on 2 303 MW of generating plant. They further, also returned 1 643 MW of generating capacity back to service over this period.”

Eskom names the units taken off-line for maintenance and those brought back again. The maintenance teams attended to seven units and five of these were back in operation again. The exceptions were Kriel unit 5 (475 MW) and Camden unit 3 (185 MW). The system therefore came out of the first weekend of the maintenance festival with 660 MW less available capacity.

Still, there was very little load shedding during that week.

According to the April 30 system status bulletin, total available capacity was 29 271 MW (720 MW less than in the previous report), planned maintenance stood at 6 152 MW and unplanned was down to 4 770 MW. The available capacity was therefore broadly in line with Eskom’s report on its maintenance.

In a statement on May 3, after the second long weekend of maintenance, Eskom reports that its maintenance teams were able to perform maintenance on 2 608 MW of generating plant and brought 2 304 MW back to service.

In total six units were attended to. All the big ones were in operation again after the weekend, but work on Hendrina unit 6 (190 MW) and Komati unit 9 (114 MW) was not completed. That is 304 MW that was not brought back to service.

One of the two outstanding units from the previous weekend, Kriel unit 5 (475 MW) was also now generating power again, but Camden unit 3 (185 MW) was still outstanding.

All in all, Eskom did maintenance on 13 units with a combined generation capacity of almost 4 911 MW of which only 489 MW was not back in service after the maintenance drive.

Surprisingly the May 4 system status bulletin showed a 592 MW increase in available generating capacity to 29 863 MW, with 6 564 MW out on planned maintenance and 6 608 MW on unplanned maintenance. That is compared with the report a week before.

It is possible that maintenance on the three outstanding units was also completed by then and they were back in operation.

The increased load shedding in the week following the maintenance festival may be a function of not only supply deficit, but also increased demand as it gets colder towards winter. That is however not clear from the Eskom reports.

[dalkill]

Eskom loadshedding Stage 6 .... Eskom turns off your water as well

[Mud Dog]

Then stage 7 must be when they come and remove all your light bulbs and electrical appliances which are sold off to neighbouring states (who still have Eskom electricity, subsidised nogal). The proceeds of your confiscated goods then go towards performance bonuses.

[4x4BEES]

Then stage 7 must be when they come and remove all your light bulbs and electrical appliances which are sold off to neighbouring states (who still have Eskom electricity, subsidised nogal). The proceeds of your confiscated goods then go towards performance bonuses.

Maybe we can put in a tender to also get a cut?

[Mud Dog]

“This is the way the world ends,” writes T.S. Eliot in his masterful poem about death and dying, called The Hollow Men:

“This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.”

I’m sitting in the load-shedding induced silence, thinking about this remarkable poem with its nod to “Mistah Kurtz”, a character from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness who is an empty tyrant. Kurtz, the avaricious, whose goodness was eaten by ambition, power and greed. Kurtz whose intent in Africa was all about "humanizing, improving, instructing".

If you’re living on the grid there’s a lot of time to think these days. When the fridge stops humming and when the ambience of the computer screen dulls. There is no grand announcement to this interruption to life. At best the ‘whimper’ of a mobile signal offers warning, but often only after the electricity is off.

I can gnash and howl and join that great South African fraternity of whingers — the social media moan-bags, the digital outrage machine with its daily machinations. The problem with carping is that even though it’s a ‘doing word’, it’s a verb that yields little return. Yes, there’s some catharsis, but it doesn’t turn the power back on. Human hot air has also yet to be effectively harnessed for national power grids.

What about ‘Captain Media’ Elon Musk’s new battery? The South African born Musk - who founded PayPal - announced a new product called ‘Powerwall’ from his Tesla Motors on 30 April 2015.

This is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery designed for domestic use that is mounted on a wall and stores electricity. “This is the same kind of lithium-ion battery that is used in cell phones and other electronic devices,” Chris Yelland tells me. A Chartered Engineer who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering, Yelland is an energy expert who publishes in the power sector.

Yelland says the electric vehicles market has driven the market for large battery packs, but obviously Musk went one step further by creating batteries for home and commercial use. “Mr Musk has opened a new plant in Nevada that is breathtakingly massive in its size, scale and its ambition,” says Yelland who predicts that time will see more innovation, development, cost reduction and scale in this sector. But unlike technology with its massive breakthroughs [microprocessing is a good example of this], innovation in the field of batteries is largely dictated by physics.

In simple terms batteries are a means of storing electrical energy, and the chemistry associated with this is fairly complex. The big question in this industry, says Yelland, is how to increase a battery’s energy density. In other words the quest is to put more energy into smaller units and to make these batteries last longer, and to do this affordably. “If you can get much longer life, you are changing the game economically. The batteries launched by Mr Musk have a life of ten years.” That’s double the current standard.

“The physical properties of material are not something that can be easily changed,” says Yelland. “Process technology changes come intermittently and in a much slower fashion.” The development of batteries has taken decades and consumers are only now enjoying the fruits of this labour.

The problem with the Powerwall as a local solution is threefold. “Powerwall is being presented as an ‘off grid’ solution,” says Yelland, who cautions: “We have to separate the hype from the reality. If you look at the reality ‘off grid’ is a stretch. The Powerwall sells for R40,000.00 a unit and on its own is not a solution for getting off the grid.”

A typical middle class house – the type of family that might be able to afford a power wall - draws about 30 kwh a day. A Powerwall produces about 10kwh. If you want to live off grid using a Powerwall you’d need to install solar panels which means your battery will need recharging three times a day. But, there there’s only about eight hours of sunlight a day. This means you’ll need more batteries – about two [or even better], three. Before you know it your off grid system will cost you close on R150,000.00.

That’s if you can even get a Powerwall. A few days after Musk announced the launch of the battery it was sold out until mid-2016. Never mind, there are local alternatives. Htxt.Africa reports that NetshieldSA offers a locally designed inverter system that can take one off grid affordably. Freedom Won also offers a battery that can be “charged from the grid to supplement power during load shedding” or paired with solar panels for an off grid solution.

But the smartest fix I’ve yet seen was created by an electrician who hails from the small fishing hamlet of Ocean View near Fish Hoek, on the Cape's Southern Peninsula. Rastafarian Ricardo Fortune waited for Eskom to connect his home for years, and eventually got so sick and tired of waiting that he made his own plan. Fortune uses a wind turbine that harnesses False Bay’s abundant wind for energy, and supplements this with solar panels. He also has a bank of car batteries that power his low-level energy requirement devices like lights, mobile phones and a computer.

Caveat lector – this is not a quick and easy DIY home solution. When you’re playing with electricity and batteries [which contain chemicals], you’ve got to know what you’re doing. Fortune is an electrician which is why this solution works for him. When you start building banks of lead-acid batteries there’s the danger of combustion and corrosion, which is why expertise is essential.

But the moral of Fortune’s story is safe and accessible. While the ‘Hollow Men’ focus almost exclusively on consolidating their own power and care little about service delivery, South Africans, like Fortune, must make a plan. We need to stop being whiny and dependent, and start becoming more independent of Eskom.

The second, longer term strategy is focusing on how to disrupt the power of the ‘Hollow Men” who rule in the name of extreme self-interest and greed, and not for the greater good of this country. That’s the real load this country must shed.

[Mud Dog]

‘Eskom tariff application too vague to interrogate’
(Antoinette Slabbert)


The Energy Intensive User Group (EIUG) will engage National Treasury and energy regulator Nersa on Eskom’s application for a 25.3% tariff increase that it says “makes a mockery of the regulatory process”.

Eskom earlier submitted an application to Nersa for a “selective re-opener” of the tariff determination for 2015/16, 2016/17 and 2017/18. Nersa announced it will consider the application, a copy of which has been published on its website here. Submissions can be made to Nersa in this regard until June 15 and public hearings are planned at a venue in Gauteng on June 23 and 24.

Nersa hopes to take a decision on June 29.

The decision is expected to be implemented shortly thereafter.

Eskom is asking for increased tariffs to provide the necessary funds to pay for diesel and short-term power purchase programmes (STPPPs) with independent power producers, as its own generation fleet underperforms and new generation capacity at its Medupi, Kusile and Ingula power stations is delayed.

EIUG spokesperson Shaun Nel says the Eskom application does not provide the information necessary for proper interrogation and scrutiny of Eskom’s cost basis.

He says it is not correct to only look at the increased cost of diesel, without off-setting it against other savings. If Eskom’s coal-fired fleet is running at a lower-than-anticipated pace, it should be spending less on water and coal for example, he says.

Nersa has indicated that, while the prescribed methodology does not provide for a selective re-opener, it will in the light of Eskom’s dire financial position speedily consider the application as it is and thereafter consider the other cost factors.

Nel however says the determination cannot be made in a piecemeal fashion. He says it should be approached holistically with proper public participation. “In the initial tariff application there were 350 submissions. These timelines do not provide enough time for the requisite prudency in considering the submissions and the application.”

Nel says the “massive increases” Eskom wants should be off-set with the money National Treasury makes from Eskom’s diesel purchases through the increased fuel levy and from the increased environmental levy.

An analysis of Eskom’s application shows that it does not give any detail about the pace at which units of its three new power stations will come online or improved performance of its existing fleet, that will presumably decrease its reliance on diesel turbines and independent power producers and therefore the required amount needed from the increased tariffs.

It bases its calculations on a requirement of R12.5 billion per year for diesel for all three years and R5.3 billion for STPPPs in the current financial year, R5.8 billion in 2016/17 and R6.2 billion in 2017/18. The cost for STPPPs increase as more generation capacity comes available from independent power producers.

Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe told Moneyweb the commercialisation of Medupi’s first unit will be completed next moth and Kusile’s first unit in the second half of next year. Medupi’s second unit is only expected to provide power to the grid by the second half of 2017. Subsequent units may be completed at intervals of about nine months, he said.

Eskom recently extended the expected completion dates of Medupi and Kusile to 2020 and 2021 respectively.

This means that at least three units should come online within the tariff period, providing about 800MW each – a total of 2 400MW of generation capacity. This seems to be a substantial addition to capacity that Eskom does not address in its application.

Eskom does generate a maximum of 862.9MW from STPPPs, but does not indicate whether the availability of some Medupi and Kusile units could replace the STPPPs in the outer years of the application.

Coenraad Bezuidenhout, CEO of the Manufacturing Circle, agrees that the Eskom application is too vague to interrogate. The Manufacturing Circle will address this as well as the impact of further increases on its members in a submission to Nersa, he said.

“The big concern is that members are paying more and more for electricity, while security of supply is decreasing and there is no certainty about the future price-path”, he says. “It is high time Eskom and government take a decision about what Eskom will look like in future, because industry cannot continue to operate with so much uncertainty”, he says.

Christo van der Rheede, CEO of the Afrikaanse Handelsinstituut (AHI) says Eskom’s application is not based on rational economic arguments, but rather a panicked call for help with its liquidity problems. He said international funders are weary of extending more finance to Eskom, because of a lack of transparency about measures to ensure savings, effective maintenance, coal and other procurement, the appointment of skilled staff at every level, retrenchments, privatisation of some Eskom entities and the integration of independent power producers.

He said load shedding has an enormous impact on the cash flow and profit margins of businesses and excessive tariffs will increase pressure on liquidity.

“The AHI asks for an extensive study to determine the impact of the proposed tariffs on businesses and the economy as a whole, before any decision is taken. The tariffs cannot be implemented without proper consideration,” he said.

He also said Nersa is supposed to do proper public consultation, including hearings in large towns, to determine the possible impact of increased tariffs on businesses, and specifically on their sustainability and competitiveness.

[Mud Dog]

‘No legal basis for Eskom 25.3% tariff application’ – EIUG
(Antoinette Slabbert)


National energy regulator (Nersa) should set aside Eskom’s application for a ‘selective re-opener’ of its current tariff determinations as it has no legal basis.

This is the message of Eskom’s biggest industrial clients in the Energy Intensive User Group’s (EIUG’s) submission to Nersa, in response to the utility’s application for a further tariff increase.

The application is for a further 10.1% increase to cover Eskom’s diesel bill and its short-term power purchase programme (STPPP) as well as a 2.51% increase to provide for the increased environmental levy.

It covers the financial years 2015/16, 2016/7 and 2017/18 and, if granted, would lead to a total average increase of 25.3% in Eskom’s electricity tariffs for 2015/16. Since this financial year started on April 1, the increase, if granted, may be even higher to compensate for the late implementation.

Moneyweb earlier reported that National Treasury said in a circular any further increase granted in terms of this application will only apply to municipalities from the beginning of the 2016/17 financial year and that Eskom was considering the withdrawal of the application as a result. No announcement in this regard has however been made.

The EIUG argues that the Multi-Year Price Determination (MYPD) methodology only provides for a re-opener in terms of actual numbers, when the net variance between Eskom’s allowed revenue and expenditure and its actual numbers is more than 10% of the revenue of that year. (This refers to the Regulatory Clearing Account (RCA) mechanism).

“As far as the EIUG is aware, neither the MYPD methodology nor Nersa’s previous decisions, contain any enabling provision for a re-opener before the end of the relevant year of the MYPD,” the organisation says in its submission.

It further says the methodology “requires a netting off of over- and under-recoveries against each other, as these may cancel each other out.”

To have a re-opener at the start of the relevant period is inconsistent with prescribed methodologies and “provides perverse incentives to the incumbent (Eskom) to overstate future cost overruns. It also disadvantages the consumer disproportionately, as consumers would have to wait for the Regulatory Clearing Account (RCA) reconciliation when actual costs prove lower and would not have the benefit of an earlier re-opener.”

The EIUG recommends that Nersa sets aside the current application and performs RCA reconciliations for 2013/14 and 2014/15. At the very least, the EIUG argues, the consideration of future cost should not be limited to diesel, STPPP and the environmental levy only, but should include all over- and under-recoveries for the previous periods.

The organisation says the poor performance of Eskom’s generation fleet must result in significant savings of primary energy cost (coal). Based on cost estimates in Eskom’s MYPD3 application it calculates that the delays in completion of several units at Eskom’s Medupi, Kusile and Ingula power stations should result in savings of R11.4 billion from 2013/14 to 2015/16.

These savings, it argues, should be off-set against the increased diesel and STPPP cost. “This cannot be done in a selective re-opener application and therefore the EIUG recommends that Nersa rejects the application in favour of a full review of Eskom’s revenue requirements.”

The EIUG says increased tariffs are not the only solution to Eskom’s problems. It points out that the implementation of the five-point plan to turn the utility around is slow “and the impact of the failure to implement some of the interventions in the five-point plan may be significant”.

It illustrates this by pointing out that Eskom’s plant availability has deteriorated even further from the 74% when the plan was announced. The procurement of power from independent power producers has just occurred, instead of in January 2015, as stated in the plan. A request for information on the substitution of diesel with gas for Eskom’s open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) has also only now been advertised, the EIUG says.

It further states that the revenue from the environmental levy has not been used for its intended purposes and it should not be increased. A surplus of R3.5 billion remains available for expenditure over the next two years, the EIUG says.

The EIUG says if granted, the current application will result in a tariff increase of 132.74% from 2010/11 to 2017/18, from 41.57c/kWh to 96.75c/kWh: “a price trajectory which will have significant impacts on a firm’s ability to remain viable.” It says this and Eskom’s failure to provide reliable electricity “places significant pressure on the South African economy and makes South African industry uncompetitive against international competitors.”

The organisation recommends that Nersa request a full socio-economic impact assessment for these tariff increases.

The EIUG asks for more detail about Eskom’s STPPP. It further argues that diesel costs should not become part of the tariff that forms the basis for future increases, but rather be treated as a surcharge that will fall away when the emergency is over. It further states that every effort must be made to secure additional supply at a lower cost than diesel and diesel procurement must be done at the most economical cost.

“In addition, continued use of OCGTs beyond 2015/16 is not fully substantiated in the application as there is no information provided in respect of the timing of new generation units coming into operation. It is unacceptable to assume that unplanned maintenance will continue at the current high level without intervention.”

The EIUG asks for clarity about the timing of the increase, if granted. It says any increase is likely to be implemented only from August 1 and “it needs to be clear whether the increase will be loaded with effect from August 1 to recover the increase that was required form April 1 2015.

“Furthermore given the legal questions over a ‘selective re-opener’ we recommend that Nersa reject the application and ask Eskom for a full tariff adjustment application in the new year.”

Nersa is expected to hold public hearings on the application in Johannesburg on June 23 and 24.

[Mud Dog]

‘It’s 25.3% too far’ – Pietermaritzburg coalition
(Antoinette Slabbert)


South African National Energy Regulator (Nersa) has issued an invitation to members of the public and stakeholders to have their say next week on Eskom’s application for the re-opening of its tariff determination.

In spite of a circular by National Treasury stating that any Eskom increase will only apply to municipalities from July 1 next year, Eskom is going full steam ahead with its application that, if granted, will see consumers pay on average 25% more for electricity.

Eskom initially anticipated the implementation of the increase, if granted, by the middle of this year or at the latest September 1.

Nersa will be hosting public hearings on June 23 and 24 at the Nasrec Expo Centre in Johannesburg and has invited members of the public and stakeholders to submit requests to present at, or to attend the hearings by Monday.

In the meantime opposition to the application is mounting and several parties have submitted written responses to Nersa.

Moneyweb earlier reported that Eskom’s biggest industrial clients said in a submission by the Energy Intensive User Group (EIUG) that the application had no legal basis and that Eskom’s needs should be offset against savings incurred by running its coal-fired power stations at a lower-than-anticipated rate.

Trade union Cosatu said in its submission that there are alternatives to addressing the challenges facing Eskom without burdening the working class and the poor.

It said the current 36% rate of unemployment, 1.3% GDP growth in the first quarter of this year and the fact that more than 50% of South Africans are living in poverty doesn’t warrant electricity hikes.

The problem Eskom is facing is due to its failure to maintain the plants and to commission the new power stations on time, Cosatu said. “The working class cannot therefore pay the price for Eskom’s inefficiencies. The working class has already been slapped with tax increases and cannot afford any further increases in the cost of living”.

The multi-year price determination system is, according to Cosatu, facing a credibility crisis because Eskom has since its inception been able to get additional increases before the end of the determination period.

Cosatu recognises that the collapse of Eskom will be disastrous for the development of the country and says government, as a shareholder, has a responsibility to fund Eskom and ensure that allocated funds are spent efficiently.

Three economists, Professors Raymond Parsons and Waldo Krugell of North West University and Gavin Keeton of Rhodes University, in a joint submission, sketched the current difficult macroeconomic conditions.

They warn against a vicious circle of raising tariffs to promote energy conservation that result in consumers moving off the grid. Eskom’s finances deteriorate further as a result of the lower consumption, which necessitates further tariff increases. “The cumulative impact of this seemingly endless cycle of tariff increases has come to have negative consequences for the economy, unless other steps are taken,” they say.

They argue that in spite of these conditions Nersa has to grant Eskom a reasonable increase that will strike a balance between Eskom’s immediate needs and the interests of the community.

The increase must be tied to assurances from Eskom on cost control and a benchmarking of Eskom’s operational cost.

“It is possible to improve Eskom’s performance while controlling or even reducing cost,” they say. “As long as the debate is based purely on inputs – the amount of money needed or spent – it will always be flawed,” they say and argue that the focus should rather be on Eskom’s results.

The South African Faith Communities’ Environment Institute (SAFCEI) in its submission voices its concern about the impact of the proposed increase on the poor and vulnerable in society.

“Eskom is a State-owned monopoly. When it puts its prices up, business and households connected to the grid have no choice,” the organisation says.

“Eskom continues to behave in an arrogant manner. It has not changed its modus operandi but continues to rely on captive electricity consumers to pay its ever-increasing costs. The aim of MYPD3 (setting the tariffs in advance for five years until 2018) was to ensure that both business and households had a predictable pattern of change. The electricity price increase trajectory was known and could be planned for.”

SAFCEI asks why the circumstances “that have now supposedly forced Eskom to approach the regulator for additional electricity prices” were not foreseen and what steps have been taken to ensure Eskom doesn’t return in the near future with further requests for increases.

The organisation calls on Nersa to conduct its own independent study on price elasticity and its impact on Eskom’s revenue, to analyse the impact of electricity price increases on inflation and food security for the poor, to make these studies public and to use it in responding to the Eskom application.

In Pietermaritzburg residents have formed a coalition across all sectors of society and political affiliations to protest the proposed hike. They plan a march on June 23 “to compel Nersa to turn down” Eskom’s application.

The coalition says the proposed increase will place a double burden on consumers as not only their electricity cost, but all other products and services will become more expensive as higher electricity tariffs are incorporated in the whole value chain.

They say the effect of a 25% increase will be that “hundreds of households will be forced to disconnect themselves from electricity because they will no longer be able to afford it.

“We are 'gatvol' with Eskom’s load shedding and blackouts. Now Eskom wants us to pay more for electricity. We cannot afford to pay. Our pockets are empty. We refuse. It is 25.3% too far,” the coalition says, proposing that other sources of funding be pursued.

[Mud Dog]

Prepare for cold, dark Sunday ..................

http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/2015/0 ... ark-Sunday" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

:roll:

[ChrisF]

Andy this is only the start ......


we will see a LOT more of this until the blackmail rates are paid ....

[Reinart21]

Hi gents, been following this thread for quite some time. Very interesting the last few posts on the price increase etc.

Just got this message from prepaid 24, as we are municipal power users in a residential area:

Electricity price increase for municipalities at 24h00 tomorrow night.Buy before 6pm on 30June and beat the rush to purchase at current price.BlessingsPrepaid24

Funny just as the price increase was denied???

[ChrisF]

Hi gents, been following this thread for quite some time. Very interesting the last few posts on the price increase etc.

Just got this message from prepaid 24, as we are municipal power users in a residential area:

Electricity price increase for municipalities at 24h00 tomorrow night.Buy before 6pm on 30June and beat the rush to purchase at current price.BlessingsPrepaid24

Funny just as the price increase was denied???

Reinhart a LOT of people are going to get BURNT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


YES, the initial 12% was approved and will be implemented tomorrow night be most municipalities.


The current media hype is about an additional 13% ....



PLEASE check your power rates with YOUR municipal area !!!!!!!!!!!!!


City of Cape Town - DO NOT buy extra power !!!!!!!!!! Our rates are on a slide scale !! I fall in a user bracket where my power is "cheap" up to 600kWh - use more than that and I pay more than R2,02 PER kWh !!! And so each group gets severly penalised for going way over their bracket !!!


Trying to skip the increase in the dear old Mother City means you will pay MORE now for the extra units than you would if you bought it normally in July .....



clearly this will differ drastically per municipal area ......

[ChrisF]

seems I missed some fine print ..... :evil:



Our fearless leaders agreed to the following :

http://www.eskom.co.za/CustomerCare/Tar ... arges.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Tariffs and charges


ESKOM annual price increase 2015/16

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) announced its determination on Eskom’s third Multi-year Price Determination (MYPD3) for the period 2013/14 to 2017/18 on 28 February 2013.

The tariff increase for 2015/16 as approved by Nersa will be implemented on 1 April 2015 for Eskom direct customers and on 1 July 2015 for municipalities as follows:
Tariff Category

Average percentage Increase

Local authority (effective 1 July 2014)

14.24%

Non-local authority (effective 1 April 2014)

12.69%



PS - remember this was a three year increase deal, thus the 1 July 2014 date repeats on 1 July 2015.


closer to home for us capies - https://www.capetown.gov.za/en/electric ... riffs.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ChrisF]

and the news confirms: "Eskom wont get the additional increase" ......

wonder just how the load shedding shedule will look for the rest of the winter ....

[Mud Dog]

The real reason for the lack of load shedding
(By Prinesha Naidoo)



Eskom is making “steady progress” in its turnaround strategy, staving off load shedding for the past nine months while undertaking planned maintenance to improve the reliability of its power plants, the state-owned company said in a recent statement. But has the commodities rout and its impact on the mining and metals and engineering sectors helped the power utility keep the lights on?

At a December briefing on the state of its system, Eskom CEO Brian Molefe admitted reports that poor economic conditions had lessened the need to implement load shedding were “somewhat true”.

“Eskom’s prime energy availability factor hasn’t significantly improved, demand has decreased,” said Shaun Nel, spokesperson for the Energy Intensive User Group. A 2016 World Bank report shows little improvement in Eskom’s installed generation capacity, but the available generation capacity of Eskom’s power plants has steadily decreased (see charts below).

According to data from Statistics South Africa, annual electricity production has been in a state of consistent decline since peaking at 262 538 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in 2011. Total electricity generation fell for the third consecutive year in 2015, coming in 2% lower compared to 2014.

So the story of avoiding load shedding is really one about falling demand. Annual electricity consumption declined by 1.5% in 2015, after a marginal increase of 0.2% in 2014 and 0.4% decrease the prior year. According to information provided by IndexMundi and the CIA World Factbook, South Africa’s energy consumption has fallen below levels last seen in 2008 (see chart below).

Deloitte research into the impact of electricity price increases on various sectors of the South African economy, shows that non-ferrous metals and gold mining are the single largest consumers of electricity, accounting for 25% of total consumption.

Both sectors were negatively impacted by the commodities rout but the recent rally in gold prices has given miners some impetus to boost production.

Demand for non-ferrous metals, largely dependent on international markets and China’s economic prospects, hasn’t fared well. “We are producing at 30% below our 2007 levels, when volumes peaked,” said Henk Langehoven, chief economist at the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of Southern Africa (Seifsa).

In the past year alone, South32 suspended three of its four high-carbon ferromanganese furnaces at Metalloys and it also suspended production in 22 pots at its local aluminium operations. The energy intensive Bayside Aluminium Smelter was also closed. However, its casthouse is being operated by empowerment group Isizinda Aluminium. International Ferro Metals South Africa, the domestic unit of the London-listed company, and Evraz Highveld Steel & Vanadium entered into business rescue.

ArcelorMittal South Africa, battling weak steel prices and competition from cheap Chinese imports, mothballed operations at its Vaal Meltshop and Forge plants in Vereeniging. It has also placed its Saldanha Works under review. And despite increasing production, Merafe Resources said investments in energy efficiency at its Lion II ferrochrome plant led to a decrease in total energy consumption from 16.48 gigajoules per tonne (Gj/t) to 13.18Gj.

With international markets expected to recover in 2018, Langhoven said this year is likely to be worse for the local industry. He said lower production is one of the factors likely to have resulted in less energy consumption.

According to Nel, on-going work into energy efficiency, particularly in the mining sector where electricity costs are the second biggest input cost after labour, would also have reduced demand.



I also wonder about the extent of influence on the lesser demand that private solar harvesting initiatives have had. There is also the energy produced by wind farms that has not been mentioned in the article above. These factors, especially the wind turbines must have had some impact.

[ChrisF]

Andy a lot of alternate power plants have already been installed, with more in construction at the moment, and yet more awaiting approval in the very near future.

PV plants - Yes, certainly these help with the DAY load. But our loadshedding was AFTER the end of business days, well mostly. Thus PV plants are of zero use to assist in the "peak load". And the few battery systems at home wont make a budge in the bigger picture.

Wind .... WOW !! There have been a LOT of these plants going up all over !! But at a 30% consistancy many more are needed .... Though these are still better than PV in terms of the national peak demand.

wont even talk of the hair brained schemes to tap into hydro ... in a water scarce country ....

Then there is another one that hardly gets news coverage - biogas to power .... more and more of these going up all over !! Very small percentage. But so good to see recycling going full circle, and pumping power back to the grid.


Those that appreciate the "bigger picture" - yes we are in a downward spiral .. but more and more you hear wispers of when the next upturn for the world economy is due ..... THIS is when we will seriously confront the reality of our lack of power generation !!! There are enough other spots in this global village for investors to take their money if we are not ready for the next wave .....

[ChrisF]

IF we are to believe the latest Moodeys reports then the upturn may start in 2017 ....


and still our power production is strained, at 10% LOWER output levels than when we had load shedding ....



not looking good ....

[Thabogrobler]

Welll, number 1 has promised no more load shedding, thus I guess we all aredoom prophets and has been proven wrong and all the economist, Stats SA and the like does not know it's elbow from it's arse.

Viva number 1, viva!!

[ChrisF]

Welll, number 1 has promised no more load shedding, thus I guess we all aredoom prophets and has been proven wrong and all the economist, Stats SA and the like does not know it's elbow from it's arse.

Viva number 1, viva!!

now where is a good sarcasm icon when you need it ....

[Mud Dog]

[ChrisF]

And today's newspaper carries a nice little story ...

Eskom's saviour and supreme leader Brian Molefe has noted in a report to parliament that he is dissapointed in the renewables energy programmes as it does NOT assist in reducing the peak hour load from the Eskom grid.

Now WHY would a mega pv plant be so useless as to not provide power AFTER sunset ? Guess we need a commission to investigate this conspiracy ....


And Greepeace is attacking this fearless leader for not appreciating that it is this very renewables programmes that have reduced the diesel bills ... in turn not appreciating the fact that eskom now sells LESS power than at the peak of load shedding .....





PS - would be interesting to see some real data of how much power the wind farms deliver, and how these assist with the peak load. Wonder about the percentages at play ...

[Mud Dog]

Yeah, we all understand that the sun doesn't shine at night and that the wind doesn't always blow (well .... hopefully all!). So how difficult can it be to stay abreast of weather conditions and plan your diesel turbine demand accordingly. I just wonder how the daytime demand compares with that of night / after-hours.

[ChrisF]

Andy it would be interesting to get the REAL facts. Doubt they will ever share that.


During load shedding the call was made to use gas turbines to reduce the impact on industry. Thus we know that industry load outstripped supply at the time.

From 16:00 till about 20:00 we had load shedding as the total domestic supply outstripped supply and they could not afford the diesel for the turbines ...


Few things happened to the day demand:
- industry shrun, and eskom is elling less power
- Part of Madupi came on line (not enough to make that much a difference)
- good many solar and wind systems got connected to the grid
- and diesel usage drastically reduced.

So let's assume day time generation now marginally exceeds day time use.

Night time .. now here it is not as clear cut:
- few of us went for gas stoves, solar geysers etc. Certainly not enough to make such a massive difference ?
- how many lights would we have to change to LED to make a real difference to the grid ...
- okay lets assume Brian Molefe is right and solar systems dont contribute to night time generation .. duh !
- wind farms would still do their bit and help a bit ... again, would love to see the real stats ... SURE this must have helped a lot for the coastal areas where these were installed.
- fair to assume there are now more homes added to the grid.

yet no load shedding at home, and no/minimal diesel burnt to keep it this way .... somehow these facts dont exactly allign ....