Who does not believe load shedding is still with us?

[Marq]

Last night we were sitting in the dark for nearly 2 hours. Now there is nothing untoward about this and Durban Electricity reflected a technical outage. So should we think this is true and technical problems and cable faults are to blame?

Well I would have, except that we were out last monday at roughly the same time for about 3 and a half hours then. And on reflection the week previous to that. I phoned them then, to hear the same vague replies to my questions.

When you phone the Durban Electricity dept, the initial answering service gives a list of areas that are out to tell that they are aware of the problem. I have phoned within a short time of the outage to find that our area is all ready on the list. If you have the patience, you can hear a looooonnnnngggg list of problem areas.

Then I hear Pretoria goes down suburb by suburb during the week - sometimes some areas are out for up to 8 hours at a time. People from Jhb tell the same story. Cape town guys seem to be usually in the dark so I have not heard of an outage problem from that region.

So....are we being subjected to load shedding - this time without a schedule and without warning and being treated like mushrooms again?

[Dave A]

Even if it isn't load shedding, it's still an infrastructure maintenance problem

[Marq]

Apparently its not infrastructure related. Its coal related.
There is still a shortage and supply to the various stations.
The main reason for this is that apparently the export price of $100/ton is a better deal than R100/ton that Eskom is paying locally. All the reasons given for increasing the price of electricity have not been activated by Eskom. One of these of course being the higher price of coal, yet they have yet to pay any higher rates.

[Dave A]

Well, Eskom admits power supply is tight. And check out those losses coming up while you're about it

[Marq]

With all these numbers being flouted I just had a look at what I am paying per k/h. Per my last statement my average cost is 61c/kwh. In dollars roughly 7,5 - 8 us cents. Per a table I found here, the avg price in the usa is 9,87 us cents.

A recent discussion with some guys in the power game revealed that they were expecting a price of R1/kwh to be the average charge coming soon. My calc was before the 32% increase announcement so that 61c will probably be 80cents and then if the expected further hit thats being bandied about comes into being; this will give us the R1 number. It would seem that we are comparable to the rest of the world.

I think the question is are we paying for all the 'poor' people out there? Eskom is blinding us with BS as the average out the numbers over the socialist system we have in place.

Looking at this para

South Africa enjoys one of the world's cheapest power costs, with the price per kilowatt hour averaging three US cents, compared with between eight and nine US cents in OECD countries. -- Reuters

So now I am wondering - are we being ripped off in Durban by the Politburo once again? or are being charged the norm and eskom is trying to pull a fast one on us.

What are you guys paying out there for your electricity?

[tec0]

Well if you don’t know by now you will probably never know. The fact is Eskom is in hot water right now. With so much money missing it defies belief! However the power problem was not new there were plans to build a few PowerStation’s back in the day but it was scrapped partly thanks to “new” management. However one must ask where is the sun-powered PowerStation? The answer is simple there is no new developments “I stand to be corrected”.

Fact is Eskom needs to wake up and soon, this is no longer a joke and I don’t think it ever was a joke to start with. Eskom is showing no discipline when it comes to money and we are paying for it. The power increases, lost of production, commercial losses and economical strain are all examples of why we need to demand that a proper audit must be done. It is the responsible lawful thing to do. But when it comes to accountability all the big fish just simply disappear from the radar. This also must end. Our government must do what is best for his people. We entrust the government act on the people’s behalf thus we must now ask the government to investigate and see why there is so much money missing.

But I personally think ColdFusion will be perfected long before this will ever happen.

[Dave A]

So now I am wondering - are we being ripped off in Durban by the Politburo once again?

I think what Eskom is quoting is the bulk rate - Durban and other municipalities mark up to cover infrastructure costs etc. (Yes, that probably includes "cross-subsidies.")

However, Eskom's claim of US 3c per kilowatt seems incredible. That would put the average at about 23c SA. Some of those preferential juice suckers like the aluminium smelters must be getting one hell of a bargain.

Subsidising the poor is one thing, but do we need to be subsidising foreign smelting operations.

[Dave A]

Aha! Some relevant news on those smelters:

One of the first high-profile victims of the global economic meltdown late last year was Iceland, which revealed itself to be an island trading as a giant hedge fund.

Now we see that Eskom is a monster aluminium trader -- and not a particularly good one at that. The power utility has recorded a near R10-billion loss mainly through its exposure to the aluminium market.

How could Eskom lose R10-billion in aluminium trading? Does it not know that its job is to provide electricity, not take speculative bets in the world’s commodity markets?

To get a sense of the scale of the loss consider that the electricity utility, with sales of R53-billion and costs of about R55-billion, would have been closer to breaking even but for the R9.5-billion loss it suffered through its exposure to international commodity markets, chiefly aluminium.

The loss is unrealised at this stage, meaning that Eskom is hoping the value of the contracts it holds will improve. So do all of us.

The near R10-billion loss represents more or less R1 000 on average per household a year. Given the choice, if I wanted exposure to aluminium, I would have put the R1 000 into buying BHP Billiton shares.

The contracts are confidential to government, Eskom and these customers. It has been well understood that pricing has been based on the utility sharing in some of the upside when aluminium and ferrochrome prices rise.

Now this week we learn that Eskom has had a significant exposure should prices fall.
full story from M&G here

[tec0]

Well, if anything money is money but why the hell do Eskom need more money when they have the whole South Africa as a customer. Then there are the countless contracts that are also just feeding them more money. But to be honest aluminium is a good metal to invest in. More and more industries are using aluminium such as Toyota to name but one.

So in all probability it is lightly that they will get their money back. However for that kind of money they could have invested in all kinds of local fabrications and other local strategies and actually do something a bit more positive. Fact is we need to generate consumables. Simple electronics such as computer components is also steady money at the moment.

[duncan drennan]

What are you guys paying out there for your electricity?

R0.61/kWh, and there is 50kWh free per month.

[judyl]

So many importers lost loads of money bringing in Generators to assist with the power issue.
Yes of course their main thinking was making money, but for many it wasn't a jump on the quick money wagon. some were dealing in the field for years.
Government promised assistance to these importers, but nothing came of it.
so much for support. We must pay for their mistakes, as well as handling the lost of generators sales due to those who jumped and dumped a lot of unsupported generators in the market.

keep well !!!!

[Marq]

We are into the next week ...so far - no outages. My Monday loadshedding theory broken.

So either I was wrong or Eskom peoples are on this site and know that we are onto them ....or................... its still coming.

[tec0]

If I may, the mining industry is responsible for few of Eskom’s many troubles. I wish to point out the following in Eskom’s defence. See I happen to know that the quality of coal being provided is rubbish! The good stuff gets exported. But the fact is Eskom is paying good money and they are receiving scraps from the local mines. The mining industry will state that they do quality checks on their coal but again! I just happen to know that a few thousand tons of crap just seems to appear overnight.

However Eskom is planning to address this problem by installing a system that will monitor the quality of coal. This system cannot be fooled and it is really impressive because it is fully automated and accurate. Most importantly it does continues quality checks in real time! There is really no way around it.

But it is time that we turn our attention to the many industries surrounding Eskom. They also have a lot of explaining to do, especially on the contractor side of things. Fact is most contractors still refuse to give training? I know for a fact that Eskom IS looking at this problem and when addressed you will see a lot of unhappy contractors.

I fear that Eskom must address these problems and soon because right now there skills development program is a joke... The fact is Eskom will go the way of the Dodo bird if they don’t wake up and soon.

Point blank. Eskom must get there house in order or they will go down taking South Africa with them... Face it, without power there is nothing; no economy, no jobs, no clean water, no industry... I think you are getting the picture.

[twinscythe12332]

I'd still like to see a solid initiative on eskom's side to push through renewable energy to extremes. The initial capital outlay would probably push them deep(or deeper) into the red, but knowing that there is a source of power that isn't being held at gunpoint would ease things alot. The coal industry can and will push eskom around if it means they get to dump their shoddy stuff and export the good. In essence, they're shafting this country.

[Dave A]

Our power at the office went down this afternoon from 3.00pm. But poweralert isn't showing any load problems.