5 large generation units down in 36 hours! – Idiotic South Africa: Rolling Blackouts back to stage 4 – My Comments
[This chaotic behaviour shows clearly where we are heading. I can tell you that from day to day we don't know what's coming next. The last 2 days were good with only 2 power outages per day. But on Thursday night I had 6 hours of outages in a period of 8 hours. I have had to make urgent changes to my solar stuff because one of my batteries was beginning to take strain and if I left it, it would have ended up exploding. To me it seems as if this chaos will not go away. I'm watching it daily. But I'm happy with this. The country needs to sink. Mostly, my own arrangements are working great. The other day I decided to urgently make some changes and I spent a few hours tweaking and changing my setup. Now it's running like a dream. I sorted out some inefficiencies. My only negative was one battery heading for explosion. But even that was not really an issue. It was a dirt cheap battery I bought 2 years ago that is breaking. I'll trade it in on a brand new battery. I knew I was taking a risk when I bought a few dirt cheap batteries. This is the first battery ever that was heading for physical breakdown and on the path to explosion. So I'm not hassled. I paid so little for those dirt cheap batteries. It was still well worth it. It might be that they can't fix this electricity ever. And it seems as if, despite their dumb "fixes" it's getting WORSE. This reminds me of when I was in computers in the corporate/banking world. The Black programmers would be doing "fixes" on their systems all the time and things don't improve. Eventually they then say that the entire system needs to be replaced!!! It looks as if this is where we are going with the electricity. Even with me ripping one bad battery out of my battery bank, I'm actually running more efficiently than before. I sorted out some inefficiencies in my setup. I have no problems. I'm getting very used to this nonsense. And I'll be able to function. About the only thing I've done that I did not do before was to bring a tiny gas stove into my kitchen so that I can make tea and coffee during power outages. Otherwise, all my prepping and preparations are running fine. Jan]
Eskom has announced stage 4 load shedding will be implemented on Sunday afternoon, with varying stages of load shedding implemented during the week.
“Due to the loss of five large generation units over the past 36 hours, as well as the delay in returning five units to service, load shedding will regrettably be increased to stage 3 (previously communicated as stage 2) at 07h00 -16h00 tomorrow.
“Between 16h00 and 00h00 load shedding will be implemented at stage 4, and then reduced to stage 2 until 05h00 on Monday.”
Three units at Kendal, one each at Tutuka and Majuba power stations were forced offline to perform emergency repairs, while the return to service of a unit each at the Medupi, Arnot, Camden, Kriel and Duvha power stations has been delayed.
“Regrettably, Stage 4 load shedding will have to be implemented at 05h00 – 00h00 on Monday. Load shedding will then be reduced to Stage 2 from midnight until 05h00 on Tuesday. This load shedding sequence is likely to be repeated throughout the week.”
Eskom said it currently has 4,597MW on planned maintenance, while another 16,457MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
“As the generation capacity shortages persist over the next few weeks, load shedding will continue to be implemented at various stages. Eskom cautions the public that it will still take a few weeks for the power generation system to recover.
“Eskom would like to remind the public that load shedding is implemented only as a last resort to protect the national grid. We, therefore, urge all South Africans to continue using electricity sparingly, especially during these uncertain times on the power system.”
Schedules
For people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:
City of Johannesburg
City of Ekurhuleni
City of Tshwane
City of Cape Town (PDF)
Nelson Mandela Bay
eThekwini
Manguang
Buffalo City
For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.
Smartphone users can also download the app EskomSePush to receive push notifications when load shedding is implemented, as well as the times the area you are in will be off.