Tag: Eskom

Life lessons from Eskom

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Eskom (our state-notverywell-run power utility) has warned again of potential loadshedding this evening*. Of course, the system could always go tits up well before that, or not at all. I realise that this isn’t an exact science and despite also being really pissed off about it, I do see that there’s no point in pretending that their predictive abilities should be 100%.

Don’t shoot the messenger.

And while not wanting in the slightest to normalise loadshedding (because we should be angry and vocal about it) we still need to get on with our lives. Being aware of what might be happening later allows us to plan ahead and be prepared. We don’t have to enjoy it, but it does make a crappy situation slightly more bearable if you know it’s coming.

Equally, if there are simple actions we can all take to mitigate the risk of loadshedding, I don’t see why we shouldn’t take them. Surprise, surprise: most of these actions involve using less electricity. People mock Eskom as being the only company in the world trying to dissuade customers from using its product, but actually, most utilities (water, gas, electricity) around the globe recognise that sensible usage of resources is a good thing. I remember visits to school from the Yorkshire Electricity Board telling us to switch off lights and not overfill kettles – it’s just the same sort of idea.

An aside: When Eskom announce these “ways to cut down on your electricity usage and help us avoid loadshedding” things, some people will always respond with something along the lines of:

Screw you. I’m going to use as much electricity as I can, just because you said not to. I’m not listening to your advice, you useless, corrupt bunch of [afrikaans anatomy]. Switching ALL my lights on RIGHT NOW!

These people are fucking idiots, and will be the same ones who complained about the size of their electricity bill just a few days previously. Not only will this raise the chances of loadshedding (albeit by a tiny amount), it will also cost them more money at the end of the month. Tosspots.

Anyway, I digress. Often.

Eskom really took the proverbial biscuit this time around, by telling South Africa how to use… a window and some curtains.

Seriously:

Right. It’s a complex set of instructions, but I’m going have a go at explaining it. I think (think) what they are saying is that when it is light outside… and you need some of that light to come inside into your living room or bedroom… you should open your curtains and/or blinds. This will allow unfettered passage of light through the transparent aperture in the window space, and into the room in question.

So that’s light… from outside… coming inside. Still with me? Good.

But oh noes! This will surely only work during the day! That’s because after the day, the sun goes to sleep and is replaced by the night shift crew of the moon and the stars, so there is no light. Apparently, the technical term for this is “dark”. Even if you open your curtains and blinds at this time, no light will come inside from outside, because there is no light to come inside from outside.

It seems that at this point, the general advice is that you should switch on electric lights. Assuming that electricity is available to make them work (and really, who knows if that will be the case), this will allow the room to be lit from the inside. You should probably remember to close your curtains and blinds if you are taking this approach, because otherwise, the light will escape to the outside and the Luftwaffe will know where to bomb.

Not good.

Wow. I’m already exhausted. I think we need to take a break here, before we overload on how to use “curtains” and “blinds”. It’s all just so deeply technical.

So let’s leave it here for now, maybe read through this again when you’ve had a quick nap. But be warned: tomorrow, we move onto “doors” and “doorways” and the advantages of them being open when trying to use them as a means of entering or exiting a room.

But don’t worry about that right now. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Today is all about windows. And loadshedding.

 

 

* post written Thursday lunchtime

Cape Town Stage 6 Loadshedding Schedules

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The country’s gone to shit, there’s literally not enough power to keep the lights lit, but we’re still hanging on by a thread…

Here are the loadshedding schedules for CAPE TOWN including stages 6, 7 and 8…ahead of the great darkness that lies beyond.

6000cozaCapeTownStages6-8

Good luck and stay safe out there, people.

Sensible advice

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Never – NEVER – believe anything any politician or government official says.

They all make promises they can’t keep, paid for with money they don’t have. It’s the same the world over.

And we end up sitting with no electricity for 7½ hours a day, despite what they assured us just 3 months ago.

A man in the know speaks

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There’s no doubting that SA is in a bad place at the moment regarding its power supply. Years of corruption, mismanagement and poor maintenance have left us in a deep hole. What I didn’t know was quite how deep.
Fortunately(?), expert Chris Yelland has now filled us all in.
(The hole, however, remains very much unfilled.)

1. SA is out of diesel
2. Pumped storage dams low
3. No power from Mozambique (2 lines down)
4. 5000 MW (8 generator units) down due to boiler tube leaks
5. Three units running but with boiler tube leaks
6. Other unplanned outages

and on point 3:

Both HVDC lines (1420 km, total capacity 1400 MW) from the Cahora Bassa hydro plant between Tsongo substation in Mozambique & Apollo substation in Gauteng are down due to the tropical cyclone. Damaged lines inaccessible, Extent of damage unknown. Time to restore lines unknown.

Oh dear. About as bad as it could get then.

Chris has also come up with a 6 point plan to try to help us climb out of the hole: click here for curated thread, which no-one with any authority will pay any attention to. This attitude is at least some of the reason we’re in this mess already.

More Eskom nonsense

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After the near countless allegations of nepotism, corruption, fraud and general mismanagement at Eskom, resulting in widespread loadshedding across the country, you’d think that things really couldn’t get any worse.
But you’d be wrong, because it turns out that even when they do manage to supply us with electricity, that electricity is often of very poor quality.

It seems that the coal and the diesel that our national power utility has been using is substandard, and thus the electricity it produces is not up to much either. Customers have reported devices running slowly, fridges not cooling properly and – in some extreme cases – power cords becoming clogged with “dirty electrons”.

While the principle of generating electricity by burning fossil fuels is fairly straightforward, the actual logistics and processes carried out in the power stations are more complicated and require a decent understanding of chemistry and physics. It’s probably a little beyond the average guy on the street, but basically as far as I understand it, the electricity we use is a flow of sub-atomic particles called electrons. Usually, an electron would carry a charge of -1, but because of the poor quality fuels being burned to produce our power, many of the electrons being produced in Mpumalanga and surrounds only have a charge of -0.8, and in one particular case recently in Ceres in the Western Cape, as low as -0.6, which caused TVs in the town to run in slow motion.

Not only do these crappy electrons not provide the correct amount of charge, their lack of correct strength means that they become “sticky”. Usually, an electron with a charge of -1 would innately repel any other electrons in its vicinity, but these “dirty”, less powerful electrons repel each other less, and that raises the danger of them sticking together in a lump within the wires and cables of the electricity system. Think of it like a blood clot in a coronary artery – and we all know the consequences of that. (It’s a heart attack, just in case you didn’t know the consequences of that.)
The sad fact is that the coal and diesel stockpiled for emergency use during these (often quite literally) dark times is all likely to be from the same batches, and so even though we might be getting electricity some of the time, it’s probably not going to be up to much.

There’s not much you can do to escape this poor quality electricity, save from giving your cables a good shake every couple of days to hopefully dislodge any build-up of sticky electrons before they get too clogged up. So just another thing to remember. Oh, and be mindful that smaller wires, like those in cellphone chargers, are particularly at risk.

There’s no quick fix here, folks. Much like Eskom in general. Much like the ANC. Sadly, we’re all going to have to get used to turning our fridges up and running Youtube videos at 1.25x speed until this passes.

Have you experienced problems with “dirty” electricity recently? Or do you have ideas to combat the damage it may do? Please comment below.