Powerless

Here: Kriel Power Station falls over and takes 2000MW with it, because of [checks notes] “heavy mist”:

Reminiscent of this or this.

And there: after the local joy that was felt at loadshedding almost happening in Australia last month, it turns out that the UK only just avoided the same fate last week.

Struggling with an aging and long underfunded national grid that was crying out for investment and updating (sound familiar), there was almost not enough electricity to go around last week, and loadshedding was only avoided by paying a frankly ridiculous price to secure some electricity from Belgium:

On July 20, surging electricity demand collided with a bottleneck in the grid, leaving the eastern part of the British capital briefly short of power. Only by paying a record high £9,724.54 (about $11,685) per megawatt hour — more than 5,000% higher than the typical price — did the UK avoid homes and businesses going dark. That was the nosebleed cost to persuade Belgium to crank up aging electricity plants to send energy across the English Channel.

Sounds like a lot anyway, but then especially when you compare it to what they usually pay:

The absurdity of that level is apparent when comparing it with the year-to-date average for UK spot electricity: £178 per megawatt hour.

We don’t have the luxury[?] of a Belgium right next door, so we couldn’t have lobbed out the R196,611.50 /MWh that would have been required to keep the lights on. So our lights would have gone off (like they probably will this evening), and like the UK’s very nearly did:

If Belgium had not helped, the grid would had been forced to “undertake demand control and disconnect homes from electricity,” says a grid spokesperson.

Of course:

“Demand control” = “Rolling blackouts” = “Loadshedding” = “Misery”

Thus, it can be deduced that when it comes to shaky electricity systems, the UK, Australia and SA are all basically the same, but our local (occasional) electricity provider is the only one that follows through on actually flicking the off switch.

Not a great day

It’s wet. It’s windy. It’s cold. There’s no electricity for the third time today, and this time it’s dark as well.

The internet is still working, thanks to the addition of another pricey new UPS, but everything has to balanced so that we don’t run out of juice on the laptop while we’re trying to enjoy the wifi.

I can’t find the Women’s UEFA game on DSTV and I want to watch because, well, there’s not much else I can do, and it’s from Bramall Lane and my Dad is there. That said, it’s halfway through the first half and there’s been one shot (not on target), so maybe I’m not missing much.

The beagle is curled up in front of the fire, and that seems like a good thing to do. I’m going to finish this, then curl up in my giant beanbag and watch YouTube videos until I can do some dinner for the family after 8pm.

Grr. So tired of this crap.

Alleged cable thieves arrested.

ISTOTBIDMPD

We have enough problems with our electricity supply (I’m not even going to link to it any more) (ok, one last time: here you go) without bits of the actual power system being stolen. And yet cable theft is a huge problem here, especially with prices for metal being so high.

So it was good to see that a breakthrough was made in Nelspruit recently:

And not just a bit of scrap metal. A lot of scrap metal:

They allegedly found Eskom pylons weighing 740 kilograms, Eskom cables 350 meters long and a burned copper 98,5 kilograms valued to over R200 000. 

Here’s the shot of Beatrice which was shared.

Now, I’m no expert on cable theft, but I would have thought that disconnecting the cables at the other end before handling them would have been the way to go, Beatrice.

Ohm my lord: she looks shocked, doesn’t she? Watt was she thinking? I’m glad to see that she’s been charged. I wonder if she offered any resistance? Apparently she only got bailed at 10pm last night so when she got home, her husband asked “Wire you insulate?”.
Anyway, now she’s well and truly grounded.

It’s ok. I’m stopping now.
Sorry.

I was just trying to keep you all up to date with current events.

Shod

More fun and games with the electricity. Is it worse to have it go off right on the hour when it is supposed to, or is it worse for it to tempt and tantalise your hopes and press your optimism button (not a euphemism) for an additional 15 minutes (or actually 26 minutes this afternoon) before bringing you back down to earth with a bump as the power disappears?

My jury is out. I dislike both scenarios, but I would almost have been more annoyed if it hadn’t been cut this afternoon, given that I was – for once – fully prepared with flask and other things.

But it is all very tiresome.

We went to bed in pitch darkness last night and woke up the same this morning. And we’ll do it again tonight and tomorrow as well.

However, there may be some light (pun intended?) at the end of the tunnel, as the illegally striking workers do seem to have begun to return to work now. Not that things were brilliant before they walked out, but at least there’s someone there in the power stations to blame the faulty equipment now.

I’m on taxi duty again this evening, but at least we’re going somewhere with generators, music and security tonight, instead of the scary place from earlier in the week.

Little wins. Always worth celebrating.

Happy Alternative

There might be Stage 6 loadshedding tonight, and it might coincide with our dinner time, but on the plus side, it’s been a cracker of a day in Cape Town and we are lucky enough to have an alternative to the electric oven, and plenty of wood to power it with.

And so, making the best out of a frankly somewhat scary situation, we’re going to lob some steaks, some pork kebabs and some chicken (for the vegetarians) on the braai this evening. There will also be a salad and some garlic…? bread…?. It could actually be a very pleasant evening.

We’ve been promised “just” Stage 4 tomorrow (the Stockholm Syndrome is kicking in just as they had hoped), and so it does seem at the moment as if South Africa has survived another near miss.

But you never say never in this place.