Other than diesel constraints (both practical and budgetary) I suspect partial losses on the plants under summer heat is causing some problems. IIRC a number of 7GW was mentioned in the briefing with the unexpected stage 6. I also wonder whether joburg having to sort out their own load shedding schedule is not contributing to some grid instability at times (think joburg represents fairly large load going off and coming back but not exactly at scheduled times) needing the system operator to keep more reserve on tap so to speak.
a short video clip without context but the extremely thorough mybb content creators at least state
Lesufi talking at what appears to be an ANC election campaign event *
*emphasis my own
It took me about 20 minutes to find out that this clip was from a feedback meeting of the ANC Provincial Executive Committee giving feedback to councillors about
an update on the intergovernmental transformer replacement programme currently underway and feedback on other service delivery interventions that have been undertaken
Why is this relevant? Well, at least 5 Gauteng municipalities applied to National Treasury for what is called Eskom Municipal Debt Relief Support Programme (again emphasis my own). So, if Lesufi was speaking to councilors from the municipalities that were successful in their applications he would not neccesarily be lying about Eskom debt being “cancelled”. But what about the mybb follow-up where Eskom even “confirmed” Lesufi was lying? Well, that “article” uses Eskom’s statement about debt relief which confirms Eskom has not agreed to cancel any debt… gotcha!!!.. not so fast…from that same statement where Eskom makes every thing clear
Eskom would be required to process the first portion of debt write-off only after municipalities have met the set conditions to the satisfaction of National Treasury, for twelve consecutive months.
Does sound very much like after jumping through all the hoops, Eskom writes off the debt?
EDIT: replace “mybb” with whatever media/“news” source could not be bothered to properly check and report context that could get in the way of a juicy headline
Stand corrected. The thing is, how hard they run OCGTs and because of blackouts, do they even get to doing as specifications dictate, service intervals, turbine oil, water tests, cooling water treatment etc etc.
With the hard on turbine schedules, the maintenance should be increase. Can’t remember now what the design duty cycle for these were, but it was low. Current duty cycle cannot be low….
Indeed, @fredhen notified me of that, and of course with that info, my flippant question seems highly insensitive now, but of course that was not intended
/OT
I do not ascribe subscribe to the often-found perspective of not speaking ill of the dead. Someone shuffling off this mortal coil does not change how their actions etc. are judged this side of the great divide. With that said, one may choose to temper one’s judgement in the presence of the bereaved but in this case even if you had known of his death, I do not think others would judge your comment as having the intent of malice.
Indeed, that is my primary “gauge”. The things someone did doesn’t become good just because they moved on. With that said, while I have always seen him as someone who is a tad biased, and has an axe to grind, I don’t think his analysis of the state of things was necessarily wrong either. He fought on the right side, if you catch my drift.
But man… 65! That’s spring-chicken age. That’s way too soon. And Cancer. I mean… seriously. With the amount of cancer that friends and family has had to deal with in my immediate circle? It’s probably at least top-three on my sh*tlist.
True… and they have always affected the power production capacity. We’ve just never been quite as on edge as we are now (both the power system, and our emotions)… and as a result, the weather very much is the reason the load shedding goes up and down at times. But it isn’t the ONLY reason, nor the MAIN one though.
When arguing with a man, always try to concede his reason (if possible), and then tell him why it still isn’t a good enough excuse
Q: Why do we have more load-shedding now than in October?
A: Because the temperatures were cooler in October (acceptable answer).
VS…
Q: Why do we have load-shedding?
A: Because it is hot… (not an acceptable answer).
Actually had to explain that to someone yesterday, I mean, assuming I understand it. That’s how confusing it is. Let me see if I can break that up in points:
You are always using the reserves, while you are at the same time replenishing them. So while that OCGT is running, the Diesel trucks are also arriving in quick succession. During normal operation, this is sufficient. During times of “distress”, the tank drops faster than the Diesel lorries can bring new Diesel, and the level is slowly dropping over time.
There is a minimum reserve. This is the amount you need to bridge any short term shortage, or to do a black start (for those stations that are black-start stations).
Short-term bridging may be required whenever a larger station trips. If a big station trips, you start up some OCGTs to bridge the gap for a few minutes, until you can shut down something else (one of your large consumers) or you can go to a higher level of load-shedding (which, ideally, you want to do in a few hours, not immediately). You need highly dispatchable generators for that, so you cannot leave an OCGT sitting with an empty tank (so to speak).
Currently OCGTs are used not only for some baseline generation, but also to bridge the larger gaps. If you were expecting a plant to return from maintenance, but it returns 3 days late… you may want to bridge those 3 days using your OCGTs to prevent disruption. And this is okay, as long as you maintain that minimum reserve.
The same is true for pump schemes. There is a minimum amount of water you need to leave in the upper dam.
When plants that were out on maintenance don’t return on time, and additional plants break down in the mean time, it puts pressure on this reserve capacity. You either get lucky and another plant returns to the grid in time (to relieve the pressure), or not… and you have to create room to recover your reserves.
At this point, Eskom will then go to a higher stage of load shedding. The Diesel lorries are still running around the clock to deliver to the OCGTs, but since we’re now scaling down a bit, the tanks have a chance to rise in level. Similarly, pump schemes have a chance to push some water up to the top dam again.
Ergo, when Eskom goes to a higher load-shedding stage, citing “recovery of emergency reserves”, it doesn’t necessarily follow that they did something bad (by digging into those reserves). It also doesn’t mean that something bad happened in the last few hours. It means a number of conditions conspired, or failed to materialise, and the inevitable cannot be postponed any longer.
Much cleaner too. It is one of the reasons the old “EVs are just as dirty” arguments are wrong, because in many countries, they use natural gas to make their electricity… and that makes it cleaner than burning Diesel or Petrol at the point of use.
Jup, cause failing to plan is planning to fail … the ANC is damn good at that, proving it over and over for decades now.
With anything in life, I always say: I don’t care that things will work out. We expect/want that.
I’m much more interested in what can/could go wrong.
Why?
By having a plan for when things don’t go as expected, so what!
If you have a plan for that, the entire situation/experience can still be a roaring success.
Expect the vehicle you go on holiday to break … what is the plan when that happens?
Expect the item/part to break … what is the plan when that happens?
Expect things to go wrong in threes … Murphy and his brother “Bob’s your Uncle” are just sitting there watching for the right opportunity, with a beer in their hands.
the proposal /… / to use Karpowerships to alleviate the devastating impact of load shedding on our economy was well-considered and researched. [LINK]
“/” indicates text omitted from the above quote
Renewable energy technologies have their place and appropriate application in South Africa’s energy mix. However, they are currently being deployed far too aggressively and irresponsibly in South Africa /… / One can build two conventional six-pack power stations with R210bn if one plans and executes those projects efficiently. But instead of building power generation capacity, we are building costly transmission lines. Right now, our country needs electricity, megawatts, not transmission lines. [LINK]
“/” indicates text omitted from the above quote
my point? Not so much the cancel culture/playing the player vs playing the ball type message as it might appear. In the clamour for the latest anti-ANC headline people should at times wonder whose message are they actually spreading. The media outlets (especially the social media and other online source scraping based ones) certainly appear unwilling to trade clicks for something approaching balanced reporting. The quotes I posted might also show what power quotes removed from context can have.
My very subjective opinion is that what many people very happily repost and forward believing that they are doing the Lord’s work to rid the world of the ANC might just be helping a different part within the ANC - one that middle class Saffas might be even less keen on.
*1 → no, his opinion on one topic does not get negated by an opinion on another. The opinion that an explanation of loadshedding existing at all because of summer heat, is though not accurate - heat was used to explain the increase in stage of loadshedding.
I bet none of the main media outlets are going to do headlines/reports that incorporate the other part of that Harvard study that also calls for much more inclusive high-density housing so that the bulk of the work force can be closer to the areas of opportunity (NIMBY…?)
That was sorta my gut feeling too. Because that is a legitimate answer to that question (why, now, is there more?). The whole way the reserve capacity is handled as well. By the time we go to a higher stage, the event that precipitated it may be three days old already.
This is a terribly difficult space to play post hoc ergo propter hoc in.
Years ago we wanted to double the house, CoCT was dead keen on that. “They” said that two people living alone in a 3/4 bedroom house (kids moved out) is such a “waste” of existing resources. “Verdigting asb mense, verdigting”. It saves a ton on installing new roads, water, and sewage.
Cpt City center, lots of new housing developed, developing there, repurposing existing buildings cause we don’t have space for more freeways.
… and the trains are not allowed to work efficiently either.
Bugger me … lesson learned here. Thanks @Village_Idiot … your posts are enriching.
But, as always my intention, I’m focussing on the tiny details, like (my words) “hinting that LS 6 is due to “overheating” of power stations” is not on, the core thought. Will work on being more specific.
I HOSED myself on that one!!!
But the point was well received.
