Yeah, it was inevitable, De Ruyter “begged” for that too.
EDIT 1: If @Sarel.Wagner Level 8 comes into play, then it matters a lot less what the increase is, no one will buy power, as it is “shedded”. 
EDIT 2: Also think that it matters very little ito the Eskom debt and immense backlog of repairs and maintenance on their stations. Increases are not going to fix anything. Just another nail in the ANC’s “downhill sled” they are constructing all by themselves.
In other news …
Nope, you will find that what little is available will be scrambled for to keep food frozen etc. Also storing water will become highly important. Toilets heck… Just look at all the mess in the sea during December… Beaches closed, higher areas without water and lower areas as the level increases. Its like dominoes…
Groetnis and worried
Yeah, I have been pondering along similar lines myself the last few days …
Love the change to only…‘Groetnis’
Groetnis 
Ok, read this part …
Historically South Africa’s electricity network was developed for electricity generation to take place in a centralised area, such as at the big coal power stations in Mpumalanga, for instance. Eskom built huge transmission lines from there to the areas where electricity is consumed, such as the large centres in Gauteng and Durban.
If you look at other provinces like the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape, Eskom erected smaller transmission lines there because the philosophy at that stage was ‘we just want to send the load there, we don’t want to feed new generation into that network’.
If you look at, for example, the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, the peak load in those areas is only between 2 000MW and 3 000MW, which is around the amount of generation capacity we can feed into the network there and be linked up. Unfortunately that is the number of IPPs [independent power producers] together with Koeberg and other Eskom storage capacities that are already connected there and, as many would know, we are sitting with a situation where no further generation capacity can be connected to the Eastern Cape, Western Cape or Northern Cape.
And …
What many people do not understand is that it’s not as simple as building new solar and wind capacity, because in areas with the wind and solar resources the network is not there. It unfortunately simply doesn’t exist.
To develop a good wind farm and make it financially viable, there has to be a good wind resource, a plentiful supply of wind for enough good capacity on the wind farm. That unfortunately only exists along the coastal areas, as well as in the Northern Cape. But all the available capacity in the Northern Cape that could be connected has already been connected.
So that means that Eskom will have to build additional huge infrastructure from the northern parts of the land, from the land where the most high-intensity consumers are unfortunately generally situated in the northern parts of the country, so this electricity can be fed from the south to the north, to put it like that.
Sooo, W/Cape must generate its own power, as must E/Cape, N/Cape … makes sense.
Mantashe & Co, Gwede Inc, same guy …
Keep in mind reading this, the ANC “bought votes” by writing off Soweto’s Eskom Debt … at the cost of Eskom.
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy hardly has the capacity to change a light bulb. And yet the ANC thinks that placing Eskom — the failing power utility that threatens to drag the economy down with it — under the department’s oversight is a good idea. This takes ANC ‘policy making’ to new levels of absurdity.
It’s clear that huge chunks of the coal value chain have been hijacked by criminal syndicates, and oil and gas have mostly had a corruptly corrosive impact on African economies. A cheerleader for the sector from the ANC who has stymied efforts to shine the light of transparency on it while showing an aversion to green energy is hardly going to bring Eskom up to speed with the emerging global economy.
When you throw in the DMRE’s abject failure to do anything, it seems, beyond making a cup of Ricoffy, you know it’s time to stock up on candles. It will be ironic indeed if the total blackout comes under the DMRE’s watch, which is a plausible — some would say probable — scenario. Who will take the blame then for agitating to overthrow what’s left of the South African state? DM/BM
Mantahse & Co’s dept:
The document indicates that the department’s systems are so obsolete that it can no longer source spare parts and that it has not had managed services for almost a decade.
@plonkster … I called this first. 
Make no mistake — Gwede Mantashe now rules South Africa. We should probably get to know him better, so that we don’t fall into the same old sorry delusions we always do.
With Eskom now, he has ALL the power, ja?
So, what?
First priority, he needs to keep the Union members employed, therefore the Unions can get their monthly membership fees … but as Eskom gets worse the Union members will lose jobs, and the unions lose membership fees, dropping off a cliff.
The Unions will then have their members upset, and they in turn will get upset with Gwede, the chickens start roosting … not forgetting the criminal syndicates and their “employees” that will have a reduced income stream, as more coal stations go offline.
ANC has no more cards left to play. None. The buck stops with Mantashe.
Good.
You’d think so.
In Zim, Bob still united the people and put the blame elsewhere.
That card hasn’t been played yet.
Karpowership, a vast new field of opportunity… Money going offshore.
Groetnis
Again, I’m probably way too Western about this… but… lately I’m beginning to see a shift in the comment sections on social media, with a lot of non-Western sounding names, beginning to say things like “changing the name from Port Elizabeth to Gqeberha doesn’t solve anything”.
The same thing happened with the “giant flag project”. It got rejected very much on ground level.
I even slightly disagree with people who are against all name changes. Some name changes can be a good thing, and some name changes are better than others. In this particular case, it is the name of a river. It could have been the name of a divisive political hero. It is not all bad.
Moving Eskom to a different department, like a name change, doesn’t solve anything, and based on what I see online, this is being rejected on ground level.
The entire thing makes me think of being in peak traffic, with some guy tailgating, eagerly trying to get past, as if somehow he’d be able to do better if only he was ahead of you, and then laughably arriving at the destination at the same time as you. Same thing here, if only we put DME ahead of Eskom, maybe that will do something… pfffft.
Just saw this for our area tomorrow:
02:00 - 6h30 Stage 6 = 4 hours, 4.5
12:00 - 14:30 Stage 5 = 2 hours, 2.5
18:00 - 22:30 Stage 6 = 4 hours, 4.5 if to the minute
That is 10 hours, 11.5 to the minute.
Shifting the LS levels all the time … I’ve been a bitchin and a moaning about that now for a while … subtly they are running us closer and closer to Level 8, the half a day, but they call it Level 6 …
They shift between stage 5 and 6 at the moment. That means you occasionally get to “skip a slot” if your double-slot happens to be during the day. That means every third day or so is going to be a “bad” day. As long as we remain in this pattern, I assure you it is quite fair. We’re each getting our share of the pain.
Some days you’ll get 8 hours. Some days you’ll get 10. We’re each getting our 10-hour days. I’m not going to complain about it as long as it is fair.
I’ve seen the same!!! Been watching it on the sidelines for 2-3 years now, and it is growing exponentially.
Here in our valley, more and more of the centers are reflecting the rainbow nation. The restaurants as well, packed with South Africans. And let me just say, it is the more affluent areas I’m referring to.
It makes me smile. I’m happy, proud even because it means we are moving forward as a country.
The silent benefit … a much larger taxable income base. People who drive nice cars, and nice houses, school children, all of them need electricity, and jobs to pay for it all.
It is good. No, it is GREAT!
And THAT is why I’m so positive that when the ANC drops the ball, the groundswell will step up and say ENOUGH!
The same emerging tax base that scared the Nats into oblivion is also the ANC nemesis, they scare the ANC into desperation. And that is good for all of us.
I have no issue with that … remember, I have been the only person in the entire SA that wanted a regular 8am LS slot.
It made me acutely aware, for months now, that something feels “off”.
Slowly making us used to, as you call it “skip a slot” if your double-slot happens, used to Level 8, i…e 12h a day.
The ANC does not want to look bad with LS Level hitting 7 and 8. So why not have some creative level switching all the time?
So no, nothing to do with “being fair” … something feels off.
I know you meant that as a figure of speech, but it is not far off.
The rate at which an idea (usually a good idea) spreads is proportional to the number of people who know about it. It’s like the cooldown curve of your geyser, but in reverse. The formula is literally N = ce^kt, with c the number of people who know, and t is time. The constant k is what you might call the “spread rate”. Very good ideas have a high k value.
So yes, this is very much a thing that will first happen slowly… and then speed up.
The Western Cape is far less focused on race. That is for sure. I agree, it is great.
Look at the patterns in the schedule. In fact, do some paint by numbers to make it clear… Cape Town’s schedule is as mechanical and fair as they come. As long as the pattern of stage 5/6 repeats and switches at exactly the same time every day, eventually everyone will end up with the same amount of down hours. It is a mathematical certainty.
Of course you can make things look better… by moving things a bit. Which is what they did on Christmas and (to a lesser extent) on new years. Your efforts in obtaining an 8AM slot was also somewhat hampered because we dabbled with a bit of stage 3 this year. There was a lot of movement between stages. Remember that Eskom does that, not Cape Town. And in the rest of the country, there isn’t a day/night difference that can be (ab)used to make you look better. What you steal from one area, another area must suffer.
Rest assured, you should be getting all the slots you want now
I agree … but who decides to change LS levels? 
Know you are the voice of reason here. Just hope you don’t get disappointed, cause that is one of my teeny markers, if Plonk gets despondent… that’s then really bad.
Cause I sit here and think, we have been on 2/3/4 and then with no “warning”, the levels jump up a level with like 45m notice.
Forget CPT level, SA is running at 6, we only have 2 levels left … we will have 45 minutes’ notice.
EDIT: We are being “trained” to handle 12h LS …
Ps.
IF I’m wrong, everyone wins. No harm done.
But IF I’m right … bugger.
If in SA, somewhere where there is an ANC stronghold.
Nobody in the town knows why and nobody will ever ask why.
I believe that the incompetence of system operators can work in your favour sometimes.
