And you also understand why the political interference that demanded no load-shedding on election day was likely at the expense of using that diesel and top dam reserve that could be used for a black start.
Not a prudent thing to do.
Those reserves have to be replenished toot sweet and are probably resulting in the exaggeration of the present load-shedding to do it.
(I hope so at least).
Naaah the present reasons are there, somewhere in the googleverse. I read across it sometime during today. A bunch of units (7) were supposed to come back after maintenance. They didn’t. Then Arnot also tripped.
The letter TTT snapshotted also says some of this. They were slowly eating into the reserves, but it should be okay as long as those 7 units come back. Those units didn’t come back, and then they lost more… Alea iacta est.
The red stages and their associated percentages pertain to % load being dumped.
It is dodgy place to be, because these load blocks are pre-determined. So 2% maybe 4% at noon but 0.2% at midnight.
Dumping too little and you move further into the red, dump too much and you can shoot above 50 Hz again and lose more generators. Which in turn causes the frequency to drop even further into the red.
And then up and down again.
The intention is that the frequency settles back down at 50 Hz. In reality, it will swing low and high around 50Hz and either the swings will get smaller resulting in stability or they will get bigger and the system will be lost.
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And “thar she blows” … if they get rid of De Ruiter, I will be flabbergasted … no, I will not. 
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Man, that’s been going on for a good two days already. The BBC (black business council) wants him (and the entire board) to resign.
Does the BBC even have that kind of pull in the greater scheme of things? I kinda doubt it…
Across the social-verse, people are opining that it all has to do with his race… as they always do.
It seems the BBC’s reasoning is:
premise 1: If the CEO is any good, he will stop all load shedding immediately
premise 2: AdR clearly cannot stop load shedding
conclusion: Therefore he is incompetent and should resign.
The argument is valid, but it is not sound, because you have to argue for the premises first. I think the first premise is false…
There is this thing they call KPIs (key performance indicators). It is a quantifiable measure of performance over time towards a specific objective. That is how you measure competence. And there is usually more than one, you aren’t measured only on your ability to do one specific thing.
These guys seems to be of the opinion that they can run a closed control loop, where they fire CEO’s until the load-shedding stops. That’s a rather narrow-band sensor with some serious gain if I ever saw one…
I can go with this … then we KNOW what we are in for …
As Phil said … can take seconds …
Where is president Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho when you need him?
Here he is … WITH a 3 point plan to sort everything … when he points to “De Ruiter” … ? 
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It’s eerily similar in some ways. “Not Sure” has one week to fix all the problems, after which he is condemned to be executed by Monster Truck Demolition Derby. He barely escapes death as his plan starts working in the nick of time: the Brawndo-drenched soil finally starts sprouting plant growth after being irrigated with “water from toilets”…
This movie …
How will firing the CEO fix infrastructure… 
Eskom needs to attract and retain talent in its engineering divisions, rebuild knowledge of its own infrastructure and not destroy the power stations in the short term. In the medium term, it needs to not go bankrupt, repair, replace and expand infrastructure and keep on attracting and retaining engineering talent. In the long term, it should stop loadshedding.
Loadshedding is a symptom of quite a number of systemic issues. It is surely not possible to fix it in the short term.
Not a lot of people know this but Rowan Atkinson ( Mr Bean) is actually an electrical engineer.
Homer has power plant experience.
And the cat in the hat knows a thing or two as well.
ET is a telecoms expert.
It is the 3 blind mice that are the token disability appointments.
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Reading what the people “on the ground” are saying … chalk and caviar compared to the picture management/politicians are “selling us”. We need Rowan Atkinson’s, not Mr Bean’s.
Imagine the ANC/politicians allows Eskom to “throws it all on the table”, the real actual ground-level problems in and around Eskom, let SA see how we can help. I’m thinking along the lines of #DayZero, how CoCT pulled together as one, when all the facts were laid open on the table.
What I think is probably happening, the powers in charge, read ANC, is fighting tooth and nail to keep the true extent of the hell they caused/created, the direct result of state capture and sheer blissfully incompetence and ignorance.
How they keep De Ruiter and all the engineers so quiet, is interesting to note. Ted Blom is the only one that comes to mind … ?
I’m sure he is not wrong about the things he report… but I’ve always gotten the feeling he has an axe to grind, so he tends to lean a little towards the critical side.
This morning there is a report of another independent energy expert, saying that Eskom is burning the coal at the wrong temperature. And my immediate response is one of ambivalence… that surely there are HEAPS more to this story.
He blames management (predictably), and he praises the engineers (essentially saying it is not their fault), but this is precisely what makes zero sense to me. Boilers operating at the wrong temperature is an engineering/operational mistake, not a lack of “capacity and knowledge” on the part of management. Management shouldn’t have to know anything about the chemical properties of the coal. All they need to know is that the engineer, whom they appointed, said this is what we need to do (or not do)…
So everyone now has an opinion on this (including me 
). I think there is at least one angle that we’re missing here, and this comes down very much to worldview and culture. In Judaeo/Christian tradition and the secular worldviews that sprung from that, there is this concept of planning for the future. Putting something away, making sure the lamps have oil in them. From that stems the principle of delayed gratification: A little bit of hardship now, much better results later.
I get the feeling that a lot of the disagreement is in this sector. The style of this new guy is pretty much one of delayed gratification. Suffer the load-shedding now so we can do the maintenance and reap the benefits later. Of course there are people who disagree. There are those who would much rather that we burn more Diesel and keep the lights on: And that is understandable even. If you are a small business owner losing money… eating this month takes precedence over working lights three years from now…
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Adding to this … where my mind is going …
I think, same as what CoCT did as a city with #DayZero, is to get all the facts, from everyone, including the workers/engineers onsite, that we can help make a plan together, as SA.
Maybe more businesses invest in solar, house owners put of grid tied system to release their load off the grid, the state can make that happen with some incentives, effect new building regulations that all new houses must have XKw of panels installed, similar to the solar geyser drive a few years back.
If we do it all as a country, working together to give Eskom the time to go offline, planned, predictable, to effect proper maintenance, repairs, replace those filters to stop the worst of the emissions.
People can also lower their daily consumption dramatically … like when the rich oaks used water cause they can pay for it, the garden is more important, forgetting that it is drinking water they used. They got sorted quickly by their peers.
HOST of ideas and plans from all of us will be forthcoming … to take the pain now, effect the changes now, for longevity, and in that process, we become greener as a country … and Eskom becomes a proud SA owned company again.
Eskom blackouts - how do we (CoCT) respond?
You may have wondered how the City responds to Eskom’s load-shedding notifications at short notice. We spoke to Kadri Nassiep, from the Energy and Climate Change Directorate, to find out what happens.
>>> Listen to the quick chat here <<<
Batteries at substations, on like Level 4, don’t have enough time to recharge … bugger.
De Ruyter: “We need to spend a great deal of money over the next 10 to 15 years to replace our coal-fired power stations, which are rapidly reaching the end of their lives, with new, cleaner and greener power-generating capacity".
Rich countries: “Here’s a 131 billion rand to build greener generation”.
Gwede Mantashe: “How dare you! I am going to sue”.
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SA not pulling together …
With Amazon doing their bit …