Elbow Posted December 9, 2019 Posted December 9, 2019 ESP, News24 et al are reporting Stage 6 from 18:00. No idea what that means for shedding schedules - ESP only shows up to stage 4 and the Cape Town municipality web site is crashed. But it does mean to dump 6GW of load according to Eskom. So since Stage 4 means (for Cape Town) 7.5 hours off out of 24, I presume stage 6 means 11.25 hours off out of 24. So - how to set the inverter to survive it? I suppose we need to permit charging from the grid, only use batteries when there is no grid power - objective to get the batteries charged as quick as possible and only use them when needed. What a pain. Quote
DeepBass9 Posted December 9, 2019 Posted December 9, 2019 Wow, that is really serious now. Wet coal I presume, and the haul trucks stuck in the mud. Quote
phil.g00 Posted December 9, 2019 Posted December 9, 2019 17 minutes ago, Elbow said: I suppose we need to permit charging from the grid, only use batteries when there is no grid power - objective to get the batteries charged as quick as possible and only use them when needed. Yes, "Keep batteries charged" mode. ibiza 1 Quote
phil.g00 Posted December 9, 2019 Posted December 9, 2019 (edited) Not that my system has been down, but I can can see my grid has been load shed 3 times today already before the Stage 6 announcement. Edited December 9, 2019 by phil.g00 Quote
Elbow Posted December 9, 2019 Author Posted December 9, 2019 25 minutes ago, phil.g00 said: Not that my system has been down, but I can can see my grid has been load shed 3 times today already before the Stage 6 announcement. We had 0h00 till 2h00 and 16h00 till 18h00. I can tell when we are being shed since my inverter regulates the voltage much closer than the council does... Quote
___ Posted December 9, 2019 Posted December 9, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Elbow said: Cape Town municipality web site is crashed Yeah... it recovered about half an hour later. But obviously everyone had to go fetch the latest pdf Stage 6 means you're down 8 out of 24 hours. So one 2 hour slot and one 4 hour slot for us Capetonians. I have a midnight to 2AM slot and then another one from 6AM to 10AM. Mooi man. Meanwhile the currency market is like... meh... R16.15 for a Euro, no sweat. That's not even the worst it's been this month (16.30 a few days ago). As I always say, the world doesn't care about SA. But if something happens in Russia or Turkey, sure, then things move. Edited December 9, 2019 by plonkster Quote
Wilfred Posted December 9, 2019 Posted December 9, 2019 I still can’t find a stage 6 schedule for Pretoria, apparently most of the City council websites went awol. The app I downloaded today crashed since stage 6 announcement and have not recovered yet. We had load shedding fro just after 19:00 to around 21:00. I have been changing settings and keeping the batteries full since the rain and load shedding started last week. Still much to get used to though. Quote
Gerlach Posted December 9, 2019 Posted December 9, 2019 Jip, and so the fun begins and see what our systems can do. Looks like my GeyserWize Max control board took a hit Friday, Pump don't want to pump. open the unit and smell some magic smoky stuff. Quote
Wilfred Posted December 9, 2019 Posted December 9, 2019 (edited) What is the best course of action here? Run the system on USB until the rain stops, keep them batteries full? I am trying to find a schedule so I can reset my geyserwise as I am not always at home/office to keep an eye on things. Eskom reverted back to stage 4 since 22:00. Edited December 9, 2019 by Wilfred Quote
KLEVA Posted December 10, 2019 Posted December 10, 2019 Hi all, apologies for the late response but "HAD LOAD SHEDDING". Sometimes it doesn't matter that you have power, but if most of the ISP's and Cell Towers in you neighbourhood go down, then you are practically just as screwed. I want to comment on Load Shedding, as a ex-municipal employee, and seeing some minor insights... I know this is not true for all municipalities, but I don't think some of their efforts are recognised... Load shedding Stage 5 or 6 is "almost" no longer in the municipality control - Whilst the municipality can vote and make suggestions as to which areas to apply, Eskom has the final say on demand to those areas or at least to pressure municipalities into complience in regards to reducing power. This is why ALMOST NO municipality publishes, or supplies to mobile services like "Eshkom se Push" the proper information past stage 4. Stage 5 & Stage 6 Load Shedding can result in up to a single period of no power for up to 8 hours... Sound absolutely horrific, but we have never been there yet when we live in Municipal areas, despite Eskom incompetence. Mostly because a decent municipality shields you from it... There is an extraordinary amount of effort from the likes of eThekwini employees and management to try "spread the load", including last nights work to cut off some places for 2 hours only (outside of schedule), so that they could supply other places due for a 8 hour block during a Stage 6 that they did not deserve. <*EDIT*> I have remove a lot of political comment from this post (which was below this EDIT), as it is not "pertinent" or relevant to the discussion. I apologies to those that read it before I corrected. Quote
Wilfred Posted December 11, 2019 Posted December 11, 2019 (edited) Do anyone of you buy the statement that there were “sabotage” which caused the load shedding? I would rather say that someone was incompetent. I really recommend that these guys should watch the series called Chernobyl, can’t believe they want to look at nuclear energy when they can’t even manage something as safe as coal driven energy. Also that Zimbabwe had an illegal connection for the past 15 years which was found when Eskom were contacted by Zimbabwe to sort out their supply after the recent load shedding? Apparently they could not account for R2 billion worth of electricity that are missing per year, I don’t think all of it went to Zimbabwe though, but R2 billion worth of illegal connections, which the paying customers are charged for in the end. Edited December 11, 2019 by Wilfred Quote
Gerrie Posted December 11, 2019 Posted December 11, 2019 Stage 6 might actually reflect positive growth on Eskom books this month and boost their 2020 financial outlook. Positive growth formula. No electricity generation cost + non electricity theft due to load shedding + free bail out money + loyal paying customers cash = positive bank balance I might of just caused stage 7 or a black out Quote
Richard Mackay Posted December 11, 2019 Posted December 11, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, Wilfred said: Do anyone of you buy the statement that there were “sabotage” which caused the load shedding? I would rather say that someone was incompetent. I am quite prepared to believe this. Having worked in industrial plants for much of my (corporate) working life there's something that doesn't add up for me about Eskom's troubles. It's common knowledge that a government job is a job for life by some. So for me I can well believe that this mindset can become devious to preserve their employment, no matter what the real cost is to the country. Go back to the showdown in the UK over the coal miners strike. That was a political power struggle and we are now seeing this being played out in SA. Edited December 11, 2019 by Richard Mackay Quote
phil.g00 Posted December 11, 2019 Posted December 11, 2019 (edited) 3 hours ago, Wilfred said: Do anyone of you buy the statement that there were “sabotage” which caused the load shedding? Nope, pure political misdirection, and quite a irresponsible statement to make by Cyril. I'd go so far as to say Cyril is lying through his teeth, and knows it. My job for 30 years now is literally, to investigate and piece together big bust-ups on power systems. 2000MW isn't 1 incident, it involves 3 or more generators or multiple power-lines/busbars. No engineer or system operator would have made any such allegation, without a thorough forensic investigation, which takes time. All the available data will not have been collected yet. Nobody voices unproven theories officially, especially when they may be politically inflammatory. They be out of a job before Friday, even in ESKOM. Edited December 11, 2019 by phil.g00 Quote
___ Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 14 hours ago, phil.g00 said: Nope, pure political misdirection, and quite a irresponsible statement to make by Cyril. He mentioned something about a piece of instrumentation that was disconnected. Now this part I can believe, that could likely set off a chain of events that could eventually lead to a generator or two tripping. The question, however, is whether someone deliberately disconnected said piece of instrumentation (ie, with malice and aforethought) or did some idiot (who should have known better) disconnect it by accident, or (in my mind the most likely), someone just didn't do their job and didn't notice it wasn't connected. So Cyril didn't know about the calamity until he landed in Cairo, so we can give him a pass there. He also cut his visit short and came back sooner. So I figure there is little to fault him on. He must have been royally p*ssed... having just told the press "I visited Medupi two weeks ago and look how big and awesome it is" (I'm paraphrasing) before he got on a plane, only to land on the other side and to hear that things are seriously messed up. So I can imagine that when he got back, he hauled a bunch of people onto the red carpet... and they came up with excuses. And someone decided the missing instrumentation could possibly be construed as sabotage (you know, like the bolt in the generator at Koeberg some years ago) and so he went with it. But like you, I also don't think it was sabotage. It could be negligence that is tantamount to sabotage (aka firable offense), but I am unsure if someone actually planned it. You know, like that scene in Bad Boys II... Good morning Marcus... Good morning Mike.... How ya doin?.... aaaight.... So, how are we going to f*** up things at Eskom today?.... Gee, I don't know... I don't know... Oooh look... over there! Let's disconnect a random piece of equipment... NigelL 1 Quote
___ Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 (edited) In fact, I wonder if the scene between Cyril and his underlings didn't go little like that... complete with a Whoosah at the end. Manager at Eskom: Hey, that piece of equipment was disconnected when I got there! Cyril: It doesn't MATTER that it was already disconnected. Every time we have load shedding, I have to explain to the media... then I have to make promises of no shedding over Christmas, and then I gotta beg treasury for more funds! You guys! You are like a bunch of bloodsucking ticks... draining the life blood out of this economy... Whoosah! Edited December 12, 2019 by plonkster Quote
phil.g00 Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 A whole lot of , "can't give a further detail", "still under investigation". etc The BS of "I am not saying anything, but I'm just saying....." Now we know where to point our collective ire about the recent load-shedding: At person or persons unknown. Yeah!, it was the boogeyman. What crap. Quote
Fuenkli Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 4 hours ago, plonkster said: so he went with it. that is the problem with politicians. Always looking for somebody to blame and jump to conclusions. Making very serious dangerous statements and assumptions before getting all the facts. Unfortunately this behavior is very damaging to society. ___ 1 Quote
GVC Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 Coming from a processing background I can't see a power station not having systems, monitors and displays in place that would not have flagged a Control Room Operator that something was amiss long before any serious damage could occur. The PLC and Scada systems used nowadays "pinpoint production errors. ___ 1 Quote
DeepBass9 Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 (edited) On old equipment things get bridged, disconnected, jerry rigged and so on and so on. I just bought a new (less old) tractor. It has pots that control lift speed, drop speed, position, draft, ground sensing and a whole bunch of other stuff. The previous owner bypassed the lot and there is one switch that controls UP and DOWN. I like it. It works. Now some sorry technician probably did the same thing at the power station, and now he is the unfortunate scapegoat. Edited December 12, 2019 by DeepBass9 phil.g00 and ___ 2 Quote
Guest Sarel Posted December 12, 2019 Posted December 12, 2019 The systems can warn and alarm as much as they want, its still the idiot operator or maintenance responsible for the action of doing.... Quote
Richard Mackay Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 News today: Eskom employee charged with sabotage to appear in court in Standerton. Quote
Gerrie Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 I wonder if Eskom can proof they were not part of this sabotage, this might be a bit tricky as this was not the first time we had load shedding. This employee might have been involved since the first load shedding started back in 2000’s and it took Eskom a while to figure this out. Does this mean no load shedding ever again? ibiza 1 Quote
PaulinNorthcliff Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 On 2019/12/11 at 5:28 PM, Wilfred said: Do anyone of you buy the statement that there were “sabotage” which caused the load shedding? Coulomb 1 Quote
PaulinNorthcliff Posted December 17, 2019 Posted December 17, 2019 https://city-press.news24.com/News/eskom-is-captured-jan-oberholzer-on-wet-coal-sabotage-and-stage-6-desperation-20191216 Quote
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