We call it load shedding - the South African way for power outages....

[Johan Schoeman]

So, we are once again (as South Africans) left in the "dark" due to the national power generator/supplier not being able to generate sufficient power to keep the light on. Have had 2 hours of power outage yesterday and 2 hours today. We are on Stage 4 of Eskom's load shedding meaning that Eskom's can shed up to 4000MW of supply at any given time.

For the business that I manage - it is catastrophic. We process amongst other Nylon and Ionomers and have to start purging the extruders at least one hour before load shedding in our area starts. The cost to purge, reheat, and then reintroduce the polymers is immense. Machines are out of operation for at least 5 hours daily and then add the scrap that is generated to purged, shut down, and restart/set up extrusion lines once power is restored.

Any other of you suffering from similar power issues/outages in the country/countries that you live in? We refer to ESKOM as EKSDOM (meaning that they have no intelligence whatsoever or that they are past stupid).

Browse the web to see this fiasco. Search for ESKOM stage 4 or something similar.

Hope you have a bright and shiny evening

JS

 

[Daestrum]

The only power cut I remember that lasted over an hour was a long time ago, 1987.

 

[Sandman]

For the business that I manage - it is catastrophic

And I imagine you use so much power that a backup solution like having your own solar or diesel farm wouldn't be sufficient?

 

[Mashiane]

Eish broer, this is the bad news that we are going through

 

[BillMeyer]

And now the Power Substations are beginning to blow op due to lack of maintenance. Cost of repair - approximately R80million ($5.4m).

Cost diesel generator = $1000
Cost of Diesel = $1 per litre

Cost of Solar $ 7600 for 5.5kva system.
The above figures for a household - for a factory - who knows !!

So actually a catch 22 situation !!

Not nice at all.

 

[AnandGupta]

Some 20 years ago, in my youth, we had this privilege of having load shedding nearly daily, from 2 to 6 hours. It was our daily routine and we would be surprised if two days goes by without power cut.

Cinema halls stopping in mid screen was normal. Office, school, Market every where, people used this long hours to gather outside for some air and discussions. Market for candles, battery backup, inverter etc. were high.

I still have this habit of pressing, Ctrl+S, after typing every 2/3 words

Regards,

Anand

 

[techknight]

California here in the US, especially in the LA region can get this way sometimes during peak summer months.

 

[agraham]

I feel for you. We are in the UK and even here have occasional problems. Being out in the country we are fed by 12KV overhead lines and anything from wind, trees, errant cows or birds can bring our power down! We have UPS on our computers and have had for more than 15 years - and it has been well worth the cost. I have to admit that it seems to have got a lot less frequent in the the last two years. Maybe the power transmission company have finally replaced all the dodgy bits in the network. Here's hoping

Luckily despite our location we also have fibre to the cabinet broadband that syncs at 67Mbits even though we are 400m from the cabinet but even this goes down a couple of times a day (or more) as the modem loses the connection and has to reconnect for some reason.

We've no gas but at least the water keeps flowing (both from the taps and the sky ).

My brothers who live in the suburbs have no such problems but then they don't have a couple of acres of land to call their own!

 

[Johan Schoeman]

Still ongoing. We have a public holiday today (human rights day) but power is off....no right to electrical supply. EKSDOM (or ESKOM) is now for at least 5 consecutive days on stage 4 load shedding meaning that they shed at least 4000MW at any given time. They probably supply about 50% to 60% of capacity (the rest of the generating capacity is not working due to break downs) - the same as in about 2010 but now with about double the number of employees as what they employed in 2010. So, only about 48 000 employees employed by EKSDOM at present and electricity supply is an absolute circus. Energy experts are of the opinion that we are in for this kind of nonsense for at least the next 3 to 5 years.

Two new coal fired power stations being build for years now but they are not working and not close to completion. Already Billions of Rands over budget - money gone missing due to mostly corruption.

 

[AHilton]

I can't even imagine having to deal with that as a factory owner, Johan. Here in the American Midwest, the only time we lose power is if it's weather related (tornado, ice storm, etc.) or someone knocks down a pole. The last time we were without power was in 2007 during an ice storm. That was 2 weeks of no power to some rural places (our 280 acre small farm included). The towns were out for only hours, though. Never had an outage due to low power supply. Good luck.