12 minutes ago, plonkster said:

The first component of any get-out plan is a valid passport.

This.

For sure, I still have a relatively fresh passport, renewed it in 2015 IIRC so I still have a good 6 years left in it, my US tourist VISA also still has a good 8 left over as well.

I have also flirted with the idea of being a "Digital nomad" but I am not sure if my current savings pot will allow me to comfortably live off of the intermittent income I would then have.

But as I have mentioned here before, there are tons of places that are safe and also very low on the Big Mac Index that you can take a extended holiday to

13 minutes ago, PJJ said:

US tourist VISA also still has a good 8 left over as well

I wish the Schengen countries did that. Have to redo that one every 12 months.

12 minutes ago, plonkster said:

I wish the Schengen countries did that. Have to redo that one every 12 months.

Or even better, if the Schengen zone allowed access if you already have access to a hard to come by VISA like the US one.

Sure slap on a small processing fee if you want, but why do you want to vet me for tourist reasons if Uncle Sam already did it for you?

But there is actually a long list of countries that do this (countries you can visit with our US VISA)

Here is a list if anyone is interested : countries you can visit with a US tourist VISA

1 hour ago, plonkster said:

But the issue of an airport closing ...
... TTT will be here shortly to tell me lots of people have the same plan ...

The guys with the plan, the pro-active ones have a better chance. Be there first ... don't be the problem.

But airports without power, how long can they operate?

Small titbits that are surfacing again, with no-nonsense attitudes:
Recent warnings by Vodacom and MTN that if shedding continues that services could be interrupted. They learnt from the previous rounds.
Like even Fiber having issues each time the power comes back ON ... overloading due to all the connections being made simultaneously.
The job losses big business is sternly warning about. I was surprised by Discovery being worried, even though they do have power backup.

We have real life experiences from the last round, it was bad. We learnt. This round MAY be worse, or not, but what about the next one, or the next?

For societies completely reliant on electricity for all its needs it is incomprehensible the impact of not having it. They cannot fathom nor fully comprehend it all because mostly each time someone muses about it, people nervously (or not) laugh it off as doomsayer, compare it to the movies. Someone told me recently, but TTT, Zim survived it twice.

Agreed, it is not like the movies. Are we the same as Zim?

I think here, and in Zim it was and here it can be worse. I THINK!

Airports, cell networks and all that aside. Depending on the severity and length of the blackouts, people will actually die.
A few of the less thought of problems:
Hospitals running out of fuel with all the machines keeping people alive - if they have working and fueled generators.
People at home on oxygen bottles that cannot be refilled.
Unreliable fridges means no insulin.
Ambulances not able to drive.
...

Then again:
We survived the previous blackouts.
We came through #DayZero - till the next drought.
Zim is still working, kinda, I think.
Venezuela, horror stories coming out from there.

Flip side: If Eskom does not get fixed permanently:
Cyril will have a problem getting that investment he went around to get last year.
Existing investors may pull out.
 

So in a nutshell:
Today everything hinges on Cyril in that he and his team can start to sort this once and for all, avert April 2019.
That it will be continued even after the elections if Cyril and Kie can start the process of averting Eskom's demise.
That each and every President after that will make sure Eskom stays front and center.

 

 

Can we do anything it at all? Nope, not a thing.

Me musing about it is a way to try and comprehend it, hear other opinions and in the process maybe one or two others, who never thought about it, read our chats and gets a heads-up of the potential magnitude of it all.

 

DONG!!! Round 3!

 

Meanwhile...

Now here is something interesting. The last time it almost went to 18... it was because of something that happened in Turkey. The rest of the world doesn't really care as much about us as we might like to believe...

41 minutes ago, plonkster said:

The rest of the world doesn't really care as much about us as we might like to believe...

Nope, they don't ... till Moodey says something. 🙂 

 

Meanwhile ... 

I presume that with our grid tied solar systems and power surges, when the inverter re-connects to the grid, it is a good thing it takes up to a minute to sync, right?

Here is a nice video talking about load shedding and surges, what we can do i.e. be practical. The claims that she mentions, that has already transpired. Ouch.

Interesting to note that "time will tell" whether there could be an increase in premiums for power surge cover. Now before anyone says "that is just another justification for premium increases" ... increases are based on what their loss ratios say per category of claims. And she does give practical advice to keep those loss ratio's down. 🙂 

https://www.news24.com/Video/SouthAfrica/News/WATCH-Protect-your-appliances-and-home-from-load-shedding-related-power-surges-20150129

 

On a related topic, I notice that once load shedding starts, all of a sudden there are a lot on newbies signing up to powerforum. Its probably better through to get yourself sorted out before the loadshedding starts. There's nothing like wiring in the dark.

4 minutes ago, DeepBass9 said:

On a related topic, I notice that once load shedding starts, all of a sudden there are a lot on newbies signing up to powerforum. Its probably better through to get yourself sorted out before the loadshedding starts. There's nothing like wiring in the dark.

Unless you have a nice powerful (20W) battery powered LED light

2 hours ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Nope, they don't ... till Moodey says something. 🙂 

And at that point they also only care about us as part of that whole "emerging" block, which again gets punished as a whole.

38 minutes ago, plonkster said:

And at that point they also only care about us as part of that whole "emerging" block, which again gets punished as a whole.

You better start liking more of my posts, I almost always find myself liking yours

OK, so Cyrils going to save the day, today.

And were all going to love him and vote for him afterwards.

What'd he going to say?

The foreword:

Well ESKOM is broken, we cant have a single entity have this much influence over ZA again, we need a lot of short term money to buy a window of time, but the long-term strategy is to open up the grid to private generation. Not to fix ESKOM but to change energy production dependence on a monopoly. 

Details

1.Well, he is going to seemingly clarify or row back on ESKOM unbundling means, in a way that pacifies the unions.

So the unions will have to accept long-term competition as a price of short term jobs, assurance of state ownership etc.

2. What needs to happen is that the wires (Transmission & Distribution) are available private generation.

That lets IPP's in the door, gets him the union votes in May, after which the unions will be toothless.

(Striking after that, when the public is paying through the nose is not the PR the unions will take on).

3. Eskom needs a bunch of money, sorry, but means more taxes, which everyone now has come to realize is better than no lights.

4.The tarrifs will go up but, Cyril will take credit for keeping them below ESKOM demands.

We know that, whichever party got in this would be inevitable, so its not a big vote swinger.

5.The coal issue needs resolving, Cyril has his connections on that front, and he'll deliver on that front. ( Expect a concessions vs Tariff hike type deal).

6. Possibly some good news BS about Enel engineers, who are actually in town to start a 140MW windfarm in the Eastern Cape, and probably quite amazed at their new found status.

So I'll score myself out of 6.

 

11 minutes ago, phil.g00 said:

OK, so Cyrils going to save the day, today.

And were all going to love him and vote for him afterwards.

What'd he going to say?

The foreword:

Well ESKOM is broken, we cant have a single entity have this much influence over ZA again, we need a lot of short term money to buy a window of time, but the long-term strategy is to open up the grid to private generation. Not to fix ESKOM but to change energy production dependence on a monopoly. 

Details

1.Well, he is going to seemingly clarify or row back on ESKOM unbundling means, in a way that pacifies the unions.

So the unions will have to accept long-term competition as a price of short term jobs, assurance of state ownership etc.

2. What needs to happen is that the wires (Transmission & Distribution) are available private generation.

That lets IPP's in the door, gets him the union votes in May, after which the unions will be toothless.

(Striking after that, when the public is paying through the nose is not the PR the unions will take on).

3. Eskom needs a bunch of money, sorry, but means more taxes, which everyone now has come to realize is better than no lights.

4.The tarrifs will go up but, Cyril will take credit for keeping them below ESKOM demands.

We know that, whichever party got in this would be inevitable, so its not a big vote swinger.

5.The coal issue needs resolving, Cyril has his connections on that front, and he'll deliver on that front. ( Expect a concessions vs Tariff hike type deal).

6. Possibly some good news BS about Enel engineers, who are actually in town to start a 140MW windfarm in the Eastern Cape, and probably quite amazed at their new found status.

So I'll score myself out of 6.

 

I am not part of that "we".

13 minutes ago, SilverNodashi said:

I am not part of that "we".

Me neither. 🙂

 

27 minutes ago, phil.g00 said:

2. What needs to happen is that the wires (Transmission & Distribution) are available private generation.

I really HOPE I can then go open taps and sell to like CoCT ... them paying for the meter and me just the R150pm. 🙂 

Well, I don't really know how to score myself.

But I heard shades of all 6 issues, but vague references.

I thought he was reading some of my foreword directly from my post though.

New structure, ESKOM too big, not all our eggs in one basket, stay-state owned but allow investments just like other countries, difficult budget coming,  engineers coming home and economic stakeholders who''ll be sharing wealth (could be a reference to the mines).

He didn't back down from the unions as much as I thought he might though, but he definitely got the "IPP's are coming" message across without saying it directly.

Edited February 14, 20197 yr by phil.g00

My crystal ball says lots of BEE tenders going out for micro generation be it solar or wind or what ever. Almost like what happened in Zim where some fellow was paid to erect  large solar farm , well after the land was cleared the money vanished. Perhaps the tenders will be awarded with a serving of corruption a slice of nepotism, and a smidgen of disaster as the cherry on top. Only to have more tax payers money thrown after a bad project. Oooh and maybe we'll just quickly toss together another expensive commission in investigate their short comings, of which there will be no definitive outcome.

Call me a pessimist , but currently I can't see an enlightened future here.

I do see emigration as an adventure to explore new lands.

3 minutes ago, seant said:

My crystal ball says lots of BEE tenders going out for micro generation be it solar or wind or what ever. Almost like what happened in Zim where some fellow was paid to erect  large solar farm , well after the land was cleared the money vanished. Perhaps the tenders will be awarded with a serving of corruption a slice of nepotism, and a smidgen of disaster as the cherry on top.

My crystal ball, I don't see public tenders, I see a hard line being taken with the spending of public money now.

I see access to public power infrastructure by private power investors.

BEE was to cream it when it was public or white-owned private capital.

Now its going to be private black-owned capital. These capital projects that will be excused of AA and BEE quotas, because as the nation just saw with ESKOM that just doesn't work.

In fact, to get off the ground they may need subsidies or  lucrative supply agreements, but this will all bear legal scrutiny.

The ANC will just have to settle for the chomp-change bribes they can extract for IPP licence manipulation.

This time big black money wins.

The tender boat started sailing in 2015, and the kingmakers are already on-board this yacht.

The single buyer model solution to which Cyril referred:

Judge for yourselves.

 

Single buyer model.pdf

Storm in a teacup this past week of failures. Suddenly a whole new focus on it all. Stupid me. Glad to have been wrong and "well played" to whomever did whatever.

As suddenly the danger level 4 power failures are over ... coal reserves are up, diesel topped up ... the stations are working again.

After endearing himself with the voters and IPP investments, setting the road Eskom for increases that we (sic) "all" will support, was Cyril played or did he play the Unions?

 

 

Putting on my tin foil hat, and considering writing a novel.

If one had the power to ensure all ESKOM reserves were at a minimum through Pravin's December rant, and say delay a ship unloading at Mossel bay for 3 days, one could induce load-shedding like flicking of your bedside light. Maybe, someone who has some sway over Petrosa, perhaps a recently announced gas concession find, that one had advance knowledge of?

Now the opposition party is baying for privatization and IPPs. The prez wont allow privatization ( and keep the union vote). He will however concede IPPs are the future. The best manipulation is when you get the other person to think it's their idea.

A previous ESKOM CEO is squealing he got fired for not signing the IPP BID window 4 contracts, nobody believes him though.

This was a problem because bid window 4 is jam packed full of AREP and ANC (thebe) ownerships.

The Prez's BIL, the minster for energy signed all IPP's contracts on behalf of this discredited CEO and saved the day. This makes his other BIL who owns AREP happy too.

Other ownership's of Bid window 4 are,  oh surprise, surprise,  ENEL.

Don't worry, ENEL is listed as having already committed to the future selling off of shares to BEE interests.

They wont be out of pocket though because ENEL have just picked up a government contract without tender to report back and really bury what went wrong at ESKOM.

Masterful.

Here is the list of IPP's, note the highlighted owners. - Note Bid window 4.

DoE_2018_Ownership_in_the_REIPPPP.pdf

Edited February 15, 20197 yr by phil.g00

1 hour ago, The Terrible Triplett said:

Storm in a teacup this past week of failures. Suddenly a whole new focus on it all. Stupid me. Glad to have been wrong and "well played" to whomever did whatever.

As suddenly the danger level 4 power failures are over ... coal reserves are up, diesel topped up ... the stations are working again.

After endearing himself with the voters and IPP investments, setting the road Eskom for increases that we (sic) "all" will support, was Cyril played or did he play the Unions?

 

 

I don't know. Just arrived at a client and the power is out. Nothing on the loadshed app about load shedding. Oh well, could have been the rain? But then I get a message on Telegram that our power at home also went out. It's about 70Km from here. Nothing on the load shed apps either. Coincidence? 

3 minutes ago, SilverNodashi said:

Coincidence? 

Or misinformation?

This is a interesting read: Unbundling Eskom is a code for Privatisation

O man, I LOVE this ... Banks call on Cyril to put SA ahead of the ANC

On 2019/02/13 at 9:17 AM, The Terrible Triplett said:

"I wondered, having not been here, am I telling the truth? Now I am going to tell people there will never be any load shedding, I have been here, I have seen it,”  

the load jz was talking about is debt load 🤔