Does anyone here think there is hope? ESKOM ENGINEERS, PERSONNEL UNDER THE MICROSCOPE AFTER #LOADSHEDDING

This part being very interesting - I quote:
Gordhan says the team of engineers who have offered their services on a Thuma Mina basis will assess whether engineering disciplines are being properly followed at Eskom’s power stations and whether personnel have the right experience for the job.

“The task team that the president set up said that at many of the power stations the average of engineers is about 35 years. What we now need to do is merge the enthusiasm and the power of youth with experience so that we get the right level of engineering skills in each of our power stations.”

1 hour ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

average of engineers is about 35 years

how many of them have math?

Stage 1 warning out on EskomSePush. Time to get everything ready 😎

5 minutes ago, Gerlach said:

Stage 1 warning out on EskomSePush. Time to get everything ready 😎

can't be true with the elections just around the corner 🤣

i got this sms from them:

ESKOM WOULD LIKE TO INFORM ITS CLIENTS THAT THERE WAS NO LOADSHEDDING FOR TWO WEEKS NOW.
WE ARE WORKING FLAT-OUT TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM!

🤪 

I am not prone to posting rumours, but staying in the town where most of the employees who work on the power stations stay, I must say that there are serious grumbles about the stock levels being critically low, transporter contracts suspended and of large service suppliers not being paid for their services this last month.

If true, then we can expect the dreaded load shedding to start soon....

EDIT:Or one can hope that there is some serious restructuring taking place.

Edited October 4, 20196 yr by GVC

Stage 2 load shedding today apparently. Not sure why?

9 minutes ago, DeepBass9 said:

Stage 2 load shedding today apparently. Not sure why?

Very strange, the only site that mentions Stage 2 load shedding is the eeco. https://eeco.co.za/load-shedding/

All others, like the CoCT and City Power sites say no load shedding.

On 2019/10/04 at 6:53 PM, GVC said:

If true, then we can expect the dreaded load shedding to start soon....

 

I was unsure about posting the above, but we who stay in the area were 100% convinced that the writing was on the wall.

We actually were expecting it to start last week.

Do you think that maybe it is coincidence that the IRP is being debated currently? Is this Eskom blackmail/sabotage?

What about this "level 6"  which I understand means up to 10 hours per blackout stretch?  Does this mean totally uninterrupted blackout for (possibly) 10 hours?  Per day?

Tomorrow Mon. 13 Jan. 2020  and "start-up" for builders and many workers, factories, etc. 

If  ESKOM is in dire need of 6,000MW this must be the start of total catastrophe.

And what about the thousands of  cell towers? I understood that they are (battery back-up) equipped to carry phone/data traffic for "up to" 4 hours. What happens next?

 

18 hours ago, Adri said:

What about this "level 6"  which I understand means up to 10 hours per blackout stretch?  Does this mean totally uninterrupted blackout for (possibly) 10 hours?  Per day?

I think it depends on the strategy used by your metro.

Cape Town (for example) sheds in 2 hour slots up to stage 4, and then starts moving to 4-hour slots above that. So you are off more often during the day, but for shorter times.

JHB sheds in 4-hour slots (or so I heard), so they are off for longer periods, but less often. When moving above stage 4, the slots get longer and that necessarily translates to 8 hours or possibly even 10. The journalists obviously picked the worst number that could possibly result for the headline.

That is not to diminish the severity of the issue, merely to say that it is but half of the picture. If I have a 10-hour slot once a week, that hurts but it's still 94% availability. If it is ten hours a day, that's 60% availability.

In Cape Town, during stage 6, you may be off between 4AM and 6AM, again from 10AM to 2PM (a 4 hour slot) and again from 8PM to 10PM. A total of 8 hours. Now translate that to JHB who uses larger slots, and I think that is how they got the 10-hour number.

I don't understand what I'm being told. 

Monday 13 Jan.2020 I'm told about 25% of ZA population went back to work, factories started production after the Xmas month break and one scientific journal expected a min. of 28% increase in electricity usage over the December 2019 period.

What with wet coal, inferior quality coal and broken conveyors and more bad news, what happened?

On Sat. 11 and Sunday 12 Jan.2020 we had two 2-hour blackouts  (Durbanville)  each but from Monday until now (Wed. 15 Jan.2020) no interruptions at all!   

What did I miss?    Did ESKOM fix everything over the weekend? Or was there some what our brother Donald calls  "fake news"?

Confused, am I.........

 

Edited January 15, 20206 yr by Adri
grammar

Has anyone else noticed serious voltage drops at various times during the day, esecially at peak times?

My Axpert King has reported grid voltages as low as 160V at times, at which point things like my microwave (not on attached to the inverter) becomes basically
a device that creates dizzy food, but doesn't actually warm anything up. I'm in Joburg northern suburbs.

A sign of what's to come posssibly ?

 

32 minutes ago, TheRoDent said:

Has anyone else noticed serious voltage drops at various times during the day, esecially at peak times?

This will depend greatly on where you live. It may even be that the transformer servicing your neighbourhood is overloaded while the rest of the country is fine... 🙂

As I understand it, the frequency of the grid does tell you something about how constrained it might be, but not necessarily the voltage.

44 minutes ago, TheRoDent said:

Has anyone else noticed serious voltage drops at various times during the day, esecially at peak times?

My Axpert King has reported grid voltages as low as 160V at times, at which point things like my microwave (not on attached to the inverter) becomes basically
a device that creates dizzy food, but doesn't actually warm anything up. I'm in Joburg northern suburbs.

A sign of what's to come posssibly ?

 

Which model and size Axpert King?

Is the charge function running? Part of loss of grid volts could be your charger bringing down your supply voltage, but I don't give this much argument. 

Does this happen any day of week, or particular days? Week-end?  In the last few weeks of LOCKDOWN?   Where else can we find reasons for your "peak times"?

When it falls to 150V,  for what period?  (Don't know the spec's for your area, but they have rules where they can drop out for 1mS (?) without you complaining about it. Others will know better.

I am in Zim and our power network is truly stuffed. At my home our transformer burnt recently so they connected us to the next closest one so we are not at the end of the line and we consistently get power down at around 160v at peak times in the morning and evening and rarely above 200v. I have been careless and haven't put a voltage regulator ahead of my inverter so am expecting that it will pop in due course, just hoping that I can get some protection before it does.

The low voltage also seems to consumes plenty more units of power.

I'm using an Axpert King 5KVA. Today again grid voltage dropped to ~170-180 volts, and the inverter worked overtime to keep the regular voltage. Until the batteries ran out.

I live in Greenside. Joburg North. This wasn't a few hours, it was pretty much the whole afternoon. When eventually I put the inverter in bypass mode, the LED lights were at ~50% luminecence. @Adri it seems to be a regular occurence. Every day from aroud 6 till 10pm.

 

 

Edited May 24, 20206 yr by TheRoDent

On 2020/05/24 at 11:12 PM, TheRoDent said:

I'm using an Axpert King 5KVA. Today again grid voltage dropped to ~170-180 volts, and the inverter worked overtime to keep the regular voltage. Until the batteries ran out.

I live in Greenside. Joburg North. This wasn't a few hours, it was pretty much the whole afternoon. When eventually I put the inverter in bypass mode, the LED lights were at ~50% luminecence. @Adri it seems to be a regular occurence. Every day from aroud 6 till 10pm.

I've heard of these voltages in Zim as the grid is pushed to the limit and beyond..

But here in an old suburb of Greenside (where there isn't massive expansion of electrical supply) this is surprising. Are your neighbors experiencing the same drop? See if you can measure the voltage on the other phases feeding the area.. 

On 2016/06/24 at 7:33 PM, edmundp said:

Hi all,

I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread where we can report power failures.

I have heard of sporadic failures especially the last few days at regular intervals despite the authorities saying it is not load shedding.

I am in Pretoria and have seen my mains go down to 215V in the day and up to 247V at night. Something is amiss....

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk

The supplier will argue that these are not failures. After all end you end up just as dead if you take the toaster into a bath with you. 

However, it's a problem and I'm seeing more and more of it. 

In current persistently gloomy Gauteng I can't get enough PV to run the house and fully charge the batteries, so I've set my system to charge from grid if necessary at a scheduled time each day. But that doesn't always work because our grid voltage fluctuates like crazy (even when there's no shedding) and my Goodwe disconnects from the grid at round about 200v. 

Im interested to read posts hear about other devices maybe not liking the reduced voltage. 

Grid frequency varies too. From abou low 49s to low 50s. 

Life was so much simpler when I just had the grid and every now and then had to miss an episode of Strictly Come Dancing. 

On 2016/06/24 at 7:54 PM, Guest said:

None that I am aware of in Northern Suburbs of Cape Town.

I bet you, if there is load shedding, it will never be admitted before the elections. Ever. Because Zuma has gone and visited Eskom and he told them no more loading shedding.

The SABC will not report on it either.

So lets report it here. Google picks up the site.

 

What a surprise. 5 years later and still the same old stories.

Electiions imminent........ and suddenly Stage 4 miraculously improves to " Not currently loadshedding"

Edited October 31, 20214 yr by Brickman

On 2021/02/07 at 6:20 PM, Bobster said:

. But that doesn't always work because our grid voltage fluctuates like crazy (even when there's no shedding) and my Goodwe disconnects from the grid at round about 200v.

Grid frequency varies too. From abou low 49s to low 50s. 

 

I presume you mean 49 to51 Hz as I doubt we have seen the country outside of this range.

Normally it does not affect most of us moving 1 Hz away from 50.

10 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

I presume you mean 49 to51 Hz as I doubt we have seen the country outside of this range.

Normally it does not affect most of us moving 1 Hz away from 50.

Well I meant 49.x where x < 5 to 50.z where z > 5. So, yes, in the range from 49 to 51 but, as you suggest, usually within 1 Hz of 50.

Edited March 6, 20224 yr by Bobster