Stop that! My sides are aching from all the laughing.
Interesting …
… I wonder how much diesel has been burnt in the last few weeks?
Two things I have to say about that
- Production has not been good in Gauteng lately, so how much of this is due to roof top solar? OK… (“asked and answered, your Honour”) “not good” for me was drawing about 4.something kWh per day. So that’s still a reduction.
- I see many of my neighbours cutting back because of the costs, or because they’ve changed to prepaid which has the effect of making them much more concious about consumption.
Then I’m getting a teeny little bit concerned …
"The four units currently in commercial operation at Kusile, the youngest baby in Eskom’s generation fleet, are currently operating at an availability factor above 90% and have been taken off the list of six power stations earmarked for special attention by Eskom. "
https://www.moneyweb.co.za/news/south-africa/three-kusile-units-to-be-taken-offline-again/
They don’t have to worry about emissions anymore so are running flat out…
Tot hulle breek…
What does this graph show? To my lay eyes something started going from nothing to 4 something on 3rd April.
I read it as the load on the Eskom OCGT’s (8%) for the week. Here is the link to the source: https://www.eskom.co.za/dataportal/ocgt-usage/ which gives you Eskom and IPP data.
So a better graph is this:
The total amount of energy that was generated at the OCGTs and GTs are indicated per month, and expressed in GWh. This is shown for the current financial year, and compared against the previous financial year.
Must say, this no LS is causing me undue stress. 
Wonder if things are now “over the camel’s hump”, or just the absolute calm before the “perfect storm”.
What can sadden me immensely is IF this is all due to lower electricity use due to businesses “out of business”.
Time will tell.
Reasons given (by sources that at least appear to be sensible) are
- 10% of demand now met by private roof top solar (domestic, malls, office blocks etc). Even if those sites don’t feed back in, 10% less demand is 10% less that Eskom have to supply.
- Increased tariffs are changing useage.
- IPPs starting to come on line
- Eskom are doing a bit better of a job (I didn’t say “great”, I said “better”)
I think too that small business has been badly hit by a combination of economic downturn and load shedding.
Plus the landscape is changing. Supermarkets near me have closed down. Why? Well they say all sorts of things, but it’s really because it’s now more convenient, in middle class and up areas certainly, to use an app on your phone and have a guy arrive on a motor bike. So they don’t need to run stores anymore, they fall back on the warehouses they already had.
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One other thing worth noting is the planned maintenance that’s reduced. We were around 17% of capacity out for maintenance December through February and that dropped to 13.7% in March and now 11.4% so far in April. The orange-brown bit:
We’re only 4% better than last year in terms of unplanned outages.
I will wait and see. Some say political interference because elections. I think a combination of the last couple of years’ worth of maintenance slightly reducing current breakdowns and a reduction in maintenance for the winter season. That along with the above mentioned factors of extra PV thanks to the incentive and long-running loadshedding issues.
This.
Bobsters reasons make absolute sense and I believe this, but the entire grid in terms of maintenance cannot just be fixed in a year or so.
Stay vigilant!
I find that description interesting, because to me it looks way more yellow than brown. Of course, brown is just dark orange. so that makes complete sense, still interesting how humans can perceive the same colours slightly differently.
Eskom usually doesn’t do (much) maintenance in winter, and their financial year starts in April. So this might be “normal”.
Of course now it does. I don’t know if it’s… nevermind. It’s my monitor. Wayyyy more yellow on the center one that’s a different brand to the others.
Correct. I think they also specifically mentioned a couple of times that earlier loadshedding was (partly) due to the increase in maintenance ahead of winter.
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Ja ok ne …
Next time you want to complain, this is what some of us pay per kWh:
Jip, R 1500.18 for 168.80 kWh.
So stop B&M’ing, there are expensive places out there.
R8,88 per unit!!!
Where is this? The mother buffer city? 
Die platteland, op 'n plaas, power for the farm workers … “K_k en betaal is die Wet van Tvl” literally.
But don’t fear, there is a 17-cell 280ah DIY bank in play.
With panels.
And Victron 5kva.
This is 100% for bad day/week weather. Cheaper, and much more convenient, than a big diesel gennie for when the house, cooking/geyser needs power.
