Tag: Eskom

Koeberg siren is just a test: Eskom

Posted on

Much panic in Cape Town about the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station emergency sirens sounding, but don’t worry – it’s just a test:

Koeberg Emergency Plan Siren Test
29 February 2012
A full volume siren test of the Koeberg Public Warning System will be conducted in your area on the morning of 29 February 2012 between 10:00 and 12:00.

Only a test
The siren/public address systems installed in Atlantis, Duynefontein, Melkbosstrand, Van Riebeeckstrand, Philadelphia, Bloubergstrand, Bloubergrandt, West Beach, Sunningdale, Parklands, Robben Island and the farms surrounding Koeberg Power Station will be tested during this exercise.
Public Address announcements informing you of the test will be made before and after the sirens are sounded. No action needs to be taken by the public.
Remember: this is only a test.

Apologies if this ruins your plans for the rest of the week off with radiation sickness and a slow, agonising death.

$aving

Posted on

A couple of weeks ago, Eskom warned us that we were once teetering on the edge of load-shedding (aka “rolling blackouts”) and that we must try to save as much electricity as possible to prevent this. People see this as counter-intuitive coming from the people who generate our electricity and therefore make more money when we use it, but it’s nothing unusual: I was brought up with YEB doing roadshows at our school telling us to use less electricity, so let’s forget the exceptionalism, shall we?

Anyway, it was a reminder to up our power saving and in turn, it reminded me that I never updated you lot on how my Geyserwise installation had worked out.

Geyserwise is a timer that lets you decide when and to what temperature you choose to heat your water for use in the house. This might seem like a bit of a no-brainer for those overseas, but that fact is that most South African households (who have geysers) leave them on 24/7. And it’s a pain to remember to switch it off on your distribution board or to climb into your loft to alter the temperature on the thermostat.

Now, instead of our geyser being on 24/7 (or when I remembered to switch it on/off), it’s on for less than an hour each day. Instead of being set to 65°C, it’s set to 50°C. And wow – what a difference to our electricity bill.

That bill has come down by around 45%, which means that rather than paying for itself in the 3 months I was hoping, the unit started saving us money within 6 weeks. We’ve fiddled with it very slightly – just altering the times a little to suit us better and taking the temperature down a little more – but I cannot fault the unit or its effect.

If you’re reading this and have been considering getting one of these, just do it.

Those contact details again: Leon at Geysol (076 036 0623).

This is not a sponsored post.

City releases 2012 Load Shedding Schedules

Posted on

…and inevitably causes widespread panic and discontent.

As is their wont, in fact, since Eskom is currently struggling with huge demand and very limited supply. This is probably down mainly to the ridiculous heatwave that has crossed the country and the increased use of air-conditioning – especially in office buildings and the like – as people return to work after the summer break.

Thus, a little bit of forethought before you needlessly waste power would be nice. Because we all know the alternative:

Emergency loadshedding is a controlled way of managing available electricity distribution capacity when an unscheduled power shortage occurs.

The electricity loadshedding schedules for 2012 are now available. The schedules are indicative and would only be utilised in the event of national load-shedding being required by Eskom.

Customers are asked to switch off any unnecessary appliances in order to minimise or avoid this event.

The full list of loadshedding schedules is available in PDF here. Alternatively, you can go to the City website here and select from a detailed but limited list of suburbs to get a detailed map of the different areas and times.

And I’ll just write this bit again, in bold:

The schedules are indicative and would only be utilised in the event of national load-shedding being required by Eskom.

Even though no-one will pay any attention to it.

Tell someone who cares…

Posted on

Incoming from [redacted], questioning “Real?”.

No. Not really real. But really old.

Subject: ESKOM INCREASE – URGENT PETITION before 19th July

ESKOM TARIFF INCREASE:

Apparently it will be 45% increase each year for 3 years, totalling 135% over 3 years.  It has already been increased by about 100%.

I don’t know about you but I certainly can’t afford to have any more of my hard earned money ploughed into Eskom’s mistakes and poor management.  We have to try and fight this.

TAKE NOTE, ESKOM HAS STOPPED LOAD SHEDDING UNTIL AFTER THE RATE HIKE COMES IN…..SO THAT WE CAN ACCEPT THE HIKE…..WITHOUT TOO MUCH MOANING

We have until the 19th to petition and there has been a poor response.

PETITION AGAINST ESKOM’S ELECTRICITY RATE HIKE OF 53 %.    PEOPLE, PLEASE! WE HAVE TO STAND TOGETHER (IF ONLY THIS ONCE) ON THE ESKOM ISSUE.   IT IS HIGH TIME WE STAND UP FOR WHAT WE WORK SO HARD FOR.   DON’T BE PASSIVE – ADD YOUR NAME TO THIS LIST AND SEND IT ON

The latest is that Eskom is going to raise our electricity rates by 53%, and most of us think that it is unfair and outrageous!   Why should we pay for their mistakes?  Time is running out and we need to move fast!

Every 500th person must please CC to CEO of Eskom.  This e-mail has a table for 1000 names, starting with 1001 and ending with 2000.  Font is set to use capitals so just type in your name at the next open number.  The persons against numbers 1500 and 2000 must CC to CEO of Eskom address is on the next line – do a copy and paste into the To window

thulani.gcabashe@eskom.co.za <mailto:thulani.gcabashe@eskom.co.za>

Where to begin? Some mathematics, I think:

45% + 45% +45% isn’t 135%. You don’t just add them together, you know? But if your rudimentary calculations were correct and it has already increased by 100%, then we only have another 35% to go. Happy days.

And then, when the emotional appeal about your meagre salary gets too much, you HIT THE CAPS LOCK AND MAKE IT LOOK LIKE ESKOM HAVE BEEN ABLE TO MAGIC UP SOME ELECTRICITY FROM THIN AIR SO THAT THERE’S NO MORE LOAD SHEDDING!

Is it still not working? People still aren’t interested?
Then add another 8% to Eskom’s demands in the next paragraph. USE CAPITALS AGAIN!

And then, when you’ve wasted your time reading this, and putting your name and that of your spouse, your kids, your dog, Doreen from the cubicle next door and two random fictitious characters into the table, make sure you forward it to everyone you know.

I really wouldn’t include Thulane Gcabashe though. He left Eskom over 4 years ago.

No boom boom

Posted on

After the recent events in Japan – most notably the er… “issues” at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility following the earthquake – the public in Cape Town and surrounds has been warned not to panic if they see steam apparently leaking from the Koeberg Power Station just up the road from the city.

The public are advised not to be alarmed at steam issuing from the Koeberg nuclear power station during the next few days.

“Given the events in Japan, we want to assure the public that perfectly clean steam will issue from next to the reactor during the routine shutdown,” spokesman Tony Stott says.

He says that this was part of the cool down process of unit two, which began on Monday at 1.30am.
The unit will take two to three days to cool down enough for it to be opened for workers to begin the refuelling, maintenance and inspections.

Stott went on to say that the shutdown would last around 55 days, during which Unit One would continue to operate at full power.

Let’s hope that this operation goes off (poor choice of expression, sorry) better than the tests Eskom ran at the Duvha Power Station (not nuclear), where a turbo generator apparently malfunctioned during an overspeed test, exploded and caught fire in our own little homage to Fukushima. You only have to look at the photos to see that this was a very big bang. Eina.

This has effectively shut down (probably permanently) the 600MW facility at Duvha and with one of Koeberg’s 900MW reactors out of commission for a couple of months, there’s going to be a lot more pressure on a grid which was under a lot of pressure anyway.

So it looks like we must save electricity or once again face load-shedding.
Please help and do your bit, because no-one likes being loadshod.