Eskom ... is there ANY chance? In CPT there is

General Discussions
101

So basically, executives that likes to hop from one company to the next might be chasing incentive schemes that they can manipulate in the short term before they cash out and go to the next.

This is one of the reasons I think share based remuneration is horrible. It incentivises completely the wrong thing. A share’s performance in the “second hand market”, so to speak, doesn’t influence a company’s prospects (unless they want to raise capital again), it only influences the prospects of employees who were remunerated with share schemes.

102

Or to put it another way, sometimes the guy who does things right doesn’t look good.

103

This is often the case, because no one likes to take medicine for a long term gain. Our politics have a similar short sightedness due to the relatively short (4/5 year) election cycle. It causes political parties to focus on short term issues, to the detriment of long term gains.

Imagine trying to get votes with the following: “You and your children will be worse off if you vote for me, but your children’s children will reap the rewards and enjoy a prosperous life.”

0 Votes.

Rather promise me more free stuff.

104

Legend has it that 27 of these high-flying executives decided there was no upside for them before De Ruyter accepted a drop in salary for the job.
Also assuming the veracity of that graph posted above, he has made a difference already.
One can equally note, that since 2009 the gradient of the graph was constant.
Which to me means that his predecessors were ineffective in influencing the trend.

105

I smiled when I read this …

Towards the end of the briefing, De Ruyter said: “We have a challenge with our remaining emergency reserves. Forecasting our projected diesel consumption has put us in a position where we are likely to deplete our diesel reserves too quickly, and that will create an undue amount of risk in the system and consequently we have to preserve emergency reserves.”

106

Methinks, first, bugger the politics around this and start to implementing LS on a fixed regular schedule, alter business hours to adapt as needed, using diesel turbines as an absolute last resort.

By working outside the box we think we are in, SA can willingly give Eskom’s De Ruiter the time to fix that what needs fixing, one bit at a time, making LS hours less.

Just like #Day Zero, SA needs pulling together.

Unless someone has a better idea … ?

“Mr De Ruyter stressed they need four to six megawatts of new generation… and that is why we’re continuously going to have loadshedding… It seems like there’s no end to the situation…”

107

During one of the briefings De Ruyter said permanent Stage 1 wasn’t feasible, but didn’t elaborate.

I assume a lot of the on-the-ground switching is still manual: people in bakkies driving around. If the grid were more modern, this could be automated, but if we’re wishing for things that wouldn’t be on my list. :slight_smile:

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108

Interesting …

De Ruyter:
From an Eskom perspective - we are on track to meet targets of the legal separation of a transmission entity from Eskom by the 31 of December.

Awaiting appointment of officials for the transmission entity.

There is a regulatory process around a license for the entity. Legislative matters also

De Ruyter makes the example of paying occupational rent on a home when it is still not in your name - and the entity might end up in a similar process with the license still currently residing with Eskom Holdings SOC.

He says it isn’t as simple as buying a home, but there is not much legal precedent for this.

109

I think this is already in hand as well as it could be. The important thing is to do the maintenance. It seems (from what I’ve gleaned from news articles) that Eskom would like some funds to do the maintenance faster. That way there’d be less unplanned outages (because you’d get to the maintenance before it goes out). In the past, they would postpone maintenance on running units to cover unplanned failures… now they no longer do that (the maintenance is done, kom wat wil).

To me, that seems like someone who knows what he is doing.

Perhaps that is again the advantage of age, training, or what have you: We understand that the amount of load shedding isn’t in itself a measure of how well the CEO is doing. Rather, the amount of back-maintenance that is being caught up on despite all the things going on… THAT is a much better yardstick.

Honestly, it isn’t that hard to measure a CEO. First, you decide what the plan is. Then you check if he sticks to the plan…

110

Until you are a CEO having shareholders that you report to … this case Luthuli House.

Whoops, sorry, my bad, ANC …

Dang, got it wrong again, it is a SOE, State Owen Enterprize … so SA … naaa, lets go with the 1st one.

111

This model is the only one that works in Africa.
Now the US has a privatized grid… Perhaps we can learn a thing or 2??

112

This doesn’t sound good. I wonder how true it is.

113

I’m afraid that the utterances of My Broadband I try to avoid.
As for the pic of the generator that had had that mishap this happened many moons ago so this is sensationalist reporting.
Well, what can you expect from a bunch of wannabe IT ‘techies’ :confused:

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114

Haha I concur with your assessment of MyBroadband. It used to be an IT related forum, now they deem themselves a news outlet. Now, I can imagine that they want to make some money off their user base, but we know how that can turn out (like some other forum)…

However, in this regard they seem to quote (presumably largely verbatim) what one of these “energy experts” have said on Cape Talk. I’ve also come to take most of what these “energy experts” say with a good amount of salt and they seem to be rather “reporters who specialises in energy reporting” than “electrical engineers with a background in generation, transmission and distribution”. So my scepticism of the article rather relates to the source of the information rather than the writer.

For those interested, I heard that, a long time ago when planning was made for Y2K, Eskom worked on a plan to restart the grid (a black start). Now, I know very little of how this works technically, but apparently what would have been done back then was to use the smelters in Richards Bay (RBM) to provide a stable load to the grid while restarting the generation units one by one. After the first one was stable, then add the second one and make the resultant grid stable etc… Presumably at some point, more loads would have had to be brought in - But it was interesting to me (and makes sense afterwards) that a large but stable load is quite crucial in such a process.

From the discussion, it sounded like RBM uses about the same amount of electricity as the entirety of Durban!

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115

News24 has a good article this morning on motivations behind new calls for De Ruyter’s resignation.
https://www.news24.com/news24/columnists/pieter_du_toit/pieter-du-toit-sabotage-and-scapegoating-the-assault-on-andre-de-ruyter-and-the-escalating-war-over-eskom-20211118

It’s for subscribers only, but I, um, found a PDF.Pieter du Toit _ Sabotage and scapegoat…the escalating war over Eskom _ News24.pdf (883.4 KB)

Matshela Koko, the senior executive who was at the centre of the Guptas’ Optimum Coal Mine acquisition, and whose stepdaughter scored millions in contracts from Eskom, is being paraded by Newzroom Afrika, ENCA and the SABC as an “independent energy expert”. Brian Molefe, a self-styled close friend of the Guptas, also appears on SABC to opine on Eskom operations. 702 Talk Radio reverts to Adil Nchabeleng, a favourite of the RET crowd for his support of the Russian nuclear lobby, and SABC used Mandla Maleka, a disgruntled former Eskom executive who was passed over for the job of treasurer, to slam De Ruyter after a media briefing.

Suddenly, many of those implicated in the company’s near collapse are being normalised as neutral observers, experts in their field and with the standing to analyse internal machinations. They aren’t “alternative voices”; they are deeply conflicted individuals invested in who controls Eskom.

When the R131 billion clean energy deal was announced, breakages increased. And with that, public attacks on De Ruyter and board chairperson Malegapuru Makgoba intensified. These networks felt the squeeze for two years as investigations by the Special Investigating Unit and law firm Bowmans started to expose corruption. But now they have a chance at survival and even a spectacular resurrection.

Billions of rands are about to flow into the energy sector. There will be ample opportunity for the unscrupulous to eat. If De Ruyter has his way, that money will be tightly managed.

This last line is also why some people would now say Eskom is in total collapse, because the only way to generate power in that case is outside Eskom. And hey, I just so happen to be able to build you a new renewable plant! For cheap even.

So it’s difficult to differentiate between what’s real and what’s opportunistic. Some of the opportunists probably aren’t corrupt and honestly believe they’re our best hope, but they would benefit from slamming Eskom right now. R 131 B is a lot of money.

116

In my opinion, reading between all the lines, the last decade, there is no fix for SA and Eskom. No mater who says what to whom in the media.

What strikes me is the absolute "loud’ silence of engineers currently in Eskom’s employ, even the ones that have moved on over the last decade … not even a whisper.

No no no … not that WA you get that the posters pal’s brother’s auntie sister’s wife’s cousin’s son is an engineer at XYZ power station and he has just sent this “warning” message for you to pass on … with all the emoji’s at the end … not that one.

Why have reporters not gone and talked to engineers at multiple power stations, retired engineers?
They report on huge matters, open up can after can of worms … but not on the actual state of Eskom, as reported by engineers who work/ed there.

117

Speed reading between the 2 posted recent articles …
Eskom is in total collapse — and a vicious load-shedding cycle will follow
Sabotage and scapegoating: The assault on André de Ruyter

… are very “similar”. Shooting the messenger much?

We choose what we read, how we view the articles, what we want to “see”, me included. :slight_smile:

Putting all the info, the links to more articles, all points to the same cluster f…k:

I quote:
It was Pravin Gordhan, now Eskom’s patron as public enterprises minister, who, in 2016 and 2017, implored the public to “join the dots” when the state capture networks held sway.

The dots this time around are glowering as large as then.

And …

Eskom’s investigations have also established the existence of a syndicate responsible for the theft of approximately R100 million worth of fuel oil per month from the power station.

Rossouw said he does not see the light at the end of the tunnel. “We’re definitely going to have to get used to being in the dark,” he said.

… “have now also established” … with 2016/2017 Gordhan’s “join the dots”?
Recently that R100mil that was “discovered” is being stolen per month … yea ok … no one knew anything at all ever … I buy that. Not.

This is so big it is absolutely mind-boggling … SA does not have the funds, skills, resources, courts nor jails, to clamp down on this in its entirety.

With the low voter turnout, SA has effectively given this another 5 years to carry on “undisturbed”.

Tell me I’m wrong …

118

Oh man! BURN!..

Also, everyone knows there is a time when you have to be economical with the truth. Sometimes you have to tell people: “We’re doing everything we can” instead of “he will probably be dead tomorrow”.

119

Many many moons ago I used to work at Columbus Stainless Steel. The amount of energy required to smelt those metals to 1300degrees is huge.
Columbus has an arc furnace. Think of it as a massive welder. It use 3 carbon rods with the arc between those rods melting the metals. When that this start it is like a mini earthquake for a few hours.

The one server that was close to the furnace (i.e. in the building next door) used a slotted Pentium2 cpu (if anyone can remember those) and it would vibrate loose from the furnace so that IT had to shutdown the server and reslot the cpu weekly. And now you also know why CPUs are not using that slot socket anymore :smiley:

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120

Man oh man I remember those. What a k@k idea that was