The saying goes: In theory both theory and practice are the same, in practice not so much…
PhilisofieseGroetnis
Haha yes, I know. But in this case, I actually want to point out the paradoxical nature of things. I love paradoxes. The paradox is that the power that we think the state is trying to seize is already theirs. In theory and practice. The state is not trying to seize more control… they are desperately trying to hold on!
Let me reference a similar discussion, on whether the reserve bank should be nationalised (currently it is under private control). Again, the state already has full control. They make the laws that govern that institution. They control the budget every year. While I do not put it past them to attempt to seize more control, it won’t change a thing on the ground where your average citizen live, because they already have all the control they need to change the world… and they are failing to do it.
Interesting … from the other side of the “pond”.
This article… Now I wonder what happened to pay for your usage?
WonderGroetnis
Haha so funny this article. So obviously it would cost the utilities little to keep the costumers connected, but then it would start to cost them more and more and over time it’ll become completely unaffordable. There’s few non-paying customers now, because they’ll be disconnected if they don’t pay! 
Liberal? Conservative?
It’s hard to tell really who is which and what-what. Seems they’ve become more slander points than ideas, or ideals, or even psychological tendencies. Seems some libs now hold old conservative ideas and some cons are flirting with wearing skirts. Looks like a bowl of overcooked spaghetti to me. No sauce. Just oil to keep it slithering. Or sour pudding. But what do I know. I thought a Carlo Gavazzi was a handbag and consider myself, politically, to be extremely moderate.
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SARB slashed its 2023 growth forecast for SA to 0.3% from 1.1% at the time of the previous (November 2022) meeting. Its 2024 and 2025 forecasts were also lowered notably, to 0.7% (from 1.4%) and 1.0% (from 1.5%), respectively.
The key reason for the downward revision, the central bank said, is the scale and extended duration of load shedding in the country, adding that rolling blackouts have knocked out two whole percentage points from the annual growth outlook.
Didn’t they announce that we’ll have loadshedding without reprieve for the next two years (so make that five to ten)? So I’d expect us to have days of LS = days in year thus far.
You missed the point about it should have been Level 2 mostly tho… And now in one month (12 x worse and much higher levels) we had more than 2016, 17, 18, 19 and almost as much as 2015 and 2020.
It’s a perspective on the progression…
Progress is not always good Groetnis
RegresieweGroetnis ?
TweetreeterugGroetnis of
AgteruitGroetnis
Though, when it is stage 2, isn’t there always a place with loadshedding anyways?
But yes, I know they said stage 2, though I never believed it. 
I think an important point is that 3 months at stage 4 gives you the same hours of downtime as 6 months at stage 2. On average, more or less, and with some hand waving.
So simply multiplying the number of days by 24 and adding the hour today seems a tad disingenuous, or at least inaccurate, because it doesn’t fully account for the severity.
A better indicator would be the actual number of hours that can be expected by your average citizen. If you are in stage 1 (for example) you could be off only a few hours a week, but in stage 6 you are off 8 hours a day.
So, if we were at stage 6 for 31 days, our real downtime would be 248 hours (on average, with some hand waving)… not 732.
(Also, 31 times 24, is 744. The 732 is probably 30*24 + 12, because the picture was made at noon, but that makes the “31 days” confusing).
And we also had stage 2 and 3 mixed in as well, so it is even less than that.
Not that I am trying to put a positive spin on this, but this number is a much better indicator of what is going on than just counting the days and multiplying by 24.
Than you can slap a moving average on that, and we can make some candlestick figures that look a bit like what you get for currency trading… that might be even more interesting. The length of the “pit” would probably tell you about unexpected outages, while the bar itself will tell you more about long term outages.
Someone should do this… I’m just putting this out there on the LazyWeb™.
For general use, and as a consistent indicator, ie. trending, it’s quite good. And yes, we had Blackouts every single day so far, this year, so 31 is good seen for what it indicates.
StatistiekeGroetnis
PS: I am no paper monkey 
and have no patience, grumpy old man 
Another thing that would be useful would be to add a weight to the hours. Downtime at night doesn’t have the same effect as downtime during the day. Once you add this weight, you can start estimating the real effect of cities and towns procuring their own production and running a stage or two lower than the rest of the country, especially when it is solar production during the day time.
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Here is another “benchmark” if you want … no stats, just hard cash. 
And my personal bear bug … the “pea under the mattress”?
O no … same as the Covid debacle? Dr Zol and Gnl Hat autocratically decide what is good for who … Pressi left embarrassed after speaking in a Family meeting, him having no say whatsoever … Mantashe would love this!
And in Cape Town, as per this thread …
Cash ironically makes a very good measure, because it is literally affected by the two things I mentioned, the actual hours your area is down, and the day/night division. A power outage at night is of no consequence when everyone but security is at home, sleeping soundly in their beds 
This is the one reason I oppose the declaration of a state of disaster (not to be confused with a state of emergency). It removes parliamentary oversight. Now if this happened 4 years ago, I may have thought differently about this, but after the pandemic, and literally having nurses and doctors getting ill, some even dying, because they didn’t have PPE because of the massive corruption… not even the threat of death will make the theft stop. What makes anyone think it will be different this time?
On the positive side, the wheel does appear to be turning. Whether it is turning or just wiggling, time will tell. But it is not all bad.