Eskom???

[tec0]

There are many many people that believes that only they have the right to say anything. They see themselves as green movements and organization are heavy gunners and get there why regardless of what the world actually need. A simple case and point is organic foods. They claim it to be healthy and better but it is not.

Fact is we need genetic foods that can fight of modern infections and withstand our changing weather. Please support these foods as they really are our only hope to feed the future.

The same is true with nuclear power. They claim it will kill the world... But the truth is we need to study nuclear power and make it safe. Demand for studies and facts and ignore doom-saying.

The reality is simple, wind farming is much more effective then solar panels. So why not investigate the tech and evolve it?

Some solar systems that I know of may cost you R45k to install and R8k a year to maintain [depending on the system]

That is a lot of money. Is it worth it?

I don't know but I can say this; Like any investment study the bottom line profit and bottom line losses work out what the risks are and if it is worth it. In short educate yourself before you do anything.

[ians]

Yip i agree thats another thing to take into consideration, what if you spend all that money on energy saving stuff and have to move, for whatever reason, new job, no job, etc, or your new house doesnt have it all, you then have to fork out all that money again....eeeish.

[geraldenek]

The most irritating part of the solar geyser is the fact that there is no warm water when there is no sun - especially in cpt when it is raining for a few days in winter. We also have a gas when the solar water is too cold - but that brings up a whole other scenario.

The gas "kicks" out after a while (2 min max) so now you have to close the tap, then leave it for a minute and then restart the process. which is not the best scenario to find yourself in winter.

I read a article the other day about Eskom - Every company wants to sell their product spend so much money on advertising etc., but Eskom on the other hand is the only one that would advertise and ask you to please consume less.

[ians]

At least the old appartheid goverment got some things right, just imagine if it was left to this one to build and constuct the infractucture which is now falling to pieces due to a lack of maintenance.

[dfsa]

I always say people must stop living in their secured cocoons and should actually be out there to see the real world. Don't take all in that you read in the news as 90% of the time the news is purely directed to sell they stories and the authors only look for sensation. They do not give the true picture.

In this post I will take some quotes and give you real true facts around ESKOM.

The point is that in the space of 7 years electricity increased/increasing to 300% which is unheard of. They said the money will be used to build powerstations and etc but 5 years later they haven't started anything, electricity price increases and nothing has been built, I wonder where all those money disappeared?

Short answer here Nickolai: South Africa had the cheapest power cost in the world. The government always subsidized Eskom. Even if energy cost to the consumer rise with +600% we would still be in the higher mid range on cost for power. Later in the post I will give you the real facts on power stations.

Have you not heard of Medupi and Kusile power stations? They will start coming online sometime in 2013 (I think). SA has for many years under charged for electricity, and compounded with poor planning, we find ourselves in the situation we are now in - but ja, they are doing something about it.

Pap_Sak You seem to live outside your cocoon. Great stuff. You are correct there. Most of The poor planning can also be accredited to the previous government as they only planned for 10% of the population. They also closed and decommissioned most coal power stations in 1990-1995 instead of upgrading them.

With the price of electricity rising again and probably for the next 5 years, its hard to swallow.

If you're paying R1000 for electricity today, you can be sure that in 5 years you'll be paying double for the same amount of electricity.

"Stealing electricity" is also a grey area. Since it depends on who steals the electricity. In Cape Town the price of electricity is high. You can pay R1.10 / KWH in one area and then R1.40 / KWH in another. Also if you get you're electricity from Eskom directly you pay cheaper then if you buying it through the the Municipality.

If nobody become criminal and steal electricity, then the burden would not fall onto the honest people to recover the losses. People who steal electricity should be put in jail and locked up period.

What concerns me is people make it look like you save huge amounts of money when you install solar geysers, heat pumps etc, maybe you should be looking at the tumble drier and washing machine running 4 hours a day, just to mention 2 appliances.

There is huge savings to be gained, but the problem is that 80% of the fly by night companies are just in it for a quick buck and they do not do the installation correctly. Majority of the heat pump installations in the last couple Years has back fired. Not because of the systems, but purely because the systems was incorrectly installed.

If there was an energy crisis, goverments would be doing a lot more to make renewable energy options a lot more affordable.

Eskom and the government is hugely involved with renewable energy projects. Two examples: 1) If you come with the right project and your figures tie up, then they rebate you up to around 60-70%. There is a shopping center in the beginning stage. The owners are actually going to become a provider. They are installing solar, geothermal, etc. They are going to generate over 1 mw power from the building, they now sell that to their tenants. The remaining power will sold to Eskom and put back into the Eskom grid. First stage cost R20 million. Eskom rebate on first stage R13 million. Owners pay own investment R7 million.

2) You know when you sit on the toilet and go uuhhh including all other waste is flowing down to the shit farms. Well the first few plants is busy on final stages of commissioning. The turn all our crap into gas and this gas is now the fuel for the generators that can produce on first stages around 1.2 mva power. This power first get used in side the plants and the rest is sold and feeding back in to Eskom grid.

I fear that you may well be missing a important point. The truth is our existing power plants is falling apart thanks to our mining industry that hits Eskom with massive penalties. Thus because of the industrial and mining sector our power-stations are taking a beating and may become un-repairable soon. Why this act is not deemed criminal is beyond me, the simple reason this country may well lose there sustainably.

If you honestly believe that a few sun panels will save you then who am i to argue with you. Fact is your home may still have power but your work may not and there in is the real problem. If you study the power demands of a simple office and a small factory or even a bank you will see that the demand will surpass the devices in question's ability.

Here in is a real serious problem. Perhaps it is time to rethink our standing on nuclear energy. It is much safer then it used to be and the technology is evolving everyday. Fact is it can generate more power than anything else. This will remain the truth regardless if you ignore this simple fact.

We need safe nuclear power and we need it now....

See there is more to this then just your personal household... Our ability to survive is now under serious fret.

I fear people are ignoring this fact for far to long now.

Ian's, you are not correct here. The up and running power stations is actually in good condition and others is in revamp phase. Our main problem is the local councils and metropolitan councils. They are the ones who do not put the maintenance money where it is due. They also over load the local town distribution points by keeping adding load. They do not service transformers etc. Just corrupting the money. The only real solution here would be to have Eskom as the sole distributer and cut the councils as middle man out.


Sun panels etc if correctly done do work and do save hugely on your bill, but it is still at this point an expensive lay out cost.

Problem with nuclear, the cost for installing and building a plant is the 3-4 time the cost of other conventional plants. You other problem is it take up to 15 Years to build and put one plant in operation. Now we come to the big problem: No matter how safe you make the plant, it can go into melt down. Small things can cause a melt down, but the main problem again is the human factor and then a natural disaster as it happened in Japan

At least the old apartheid government got some things right, just imagine if it was left to this one to build and construct the infrastructure which is now falling to pieces due to a lack of maintenance.

Ians, this is not correct. I actually still can not believe people keep referring to the old government. The fact is as I state on many occasions. The old government purely did infrastructure that catered for 10-15% of the population. They were just as corrupted, their so called infrastructure was minimal if you compared the actual infrastructure that was achieved in the last 10-15 Years. I am not talking about existing infrastructure that yes, do not get any maintenance, I am talking about new infrastructure that is going on on a consistent basis.

What you actually should ask is where is all the money that was generated from natural resources & raw material extraction that happened in the 40 Years before and the time the previous government was in power. An example: 85% of global gold supply was extracted in South Africa in that period. Forget the rest like, platinum, copper, coal, uranium, diamonds, the list go on. You will truly be shocked if you do in dept research. Those same 100-300 odd family's that were involved with the previous goverment and their theft/corruption, just shifted their natural resource raping direction and are now fully focused and involved with the present government corruption circles.


OK Here are Some Facts About Eskom & Goverment power Infrastructure that is in Progress.


Fact: Eskom and the Government, even with the huge corruption within, have achieved minboggling results on getting power plants back up and running, and new plants built.

Coal fired Power Stations in full operation.
Arnot - 2100 MW
Bloemfontein - 102 MW
Camden - 1600 MW
Duvha - 160 MW
Grootvlei - 1200 MW ( Still busy to revamp 4 tubines)
Hendrina - 2000 MW
Ingagana - 500 MW ( Was converted to Gas Fire in 2007)
Kelvin - 600 MW
Kendal - 4116 MW
Komati - 1000 MW
Kriel - 3000 MW
Kosile - 4800 MW ( Is new and under construction )
Pretoria West - 180 MW
Rooiwal - 300 MW
Tutuka - 3654 MW
Gas Turbine Power Stations in full opperation.
Acasia - 171 MW
Ankerlig - 1338 MW
Gourikwa - 746 MW
Newcastle - 26 MW
Port Rex - 171 MW

Hidroelectric Power Stations in full opperation.
Drakensberg - 1000 MW
Gariep - 360 MW
Ingula - 1332 MW ( This one is completely new and should be full opperational later this Year)
Kouga - 3600 MW
Ncora - 2100 MW
Palmiet - 400 MW
Steenbrass - 180 MW
Vanderkloof - 240 MW

Nuclear Power Station
Koeberg - 1800 MW (This one is back to full opperation after the chaos a few Years ago) eish forgot the spanner inside the turbine or somewhere.
There are Bids out for another conventional nuclear power station.

Wind Power Genreration Farms.
Coega - Opperational since 2010 with 1,8 MW will have 45 MW available when complete.
Darling - Not opperational yet, but will supply 13,2 MW into the grid when complete.
Klipheuwel - Are opperational with 3.16 MW since 2002 ( This was the first wind farm and is used as the research facillity)
Sere - Will have 100 MW when complete. This one is in the funding stage and has not started yet.

One important Interesting Fact
South Africa is now the Tenth biggest power producer in the world.
45% of total power production on the whole African continent is Done by South Africa

[ians]

dfsa, thats quite a mouthful,


My concern is the little things which affect me, when it comes to energy saving, ie...heat pumps, solar geysers, etc. The cost to purchase these items, if the initial outlay was more affordable more people would be doing it, which would make a huge impact on the grid. Using energy saving lamps which have a bad power factor wouldnt be an issue if you only install 10 of them, but if you go on a huge drive to replace millions of incandecent lamps and introduce lamps which then become a disposal issue, then what? Led lamps are becoming more efficient, but once again look at the cost to purchase, with a expected life span of xxx hours, try taking one back when it pops after 2 days.

The old goverment, i agree time to move on, i just wish the rest of the country would to, however i will say the quality of workmanship was a lot better especially from the department of works. One thing which stands out for me, was all the training facilities, railways, eskom, telkom,everyone had good "quality" training centres, with suitably trained personel. I visited my old training centre a couple months back, look like a ghost town, according to the person i spoke to there use to be at least 250 appies in that centre alone, today there are only 250 appies nation wide.

Unfortunately i do live in my own little cocoon and it is getting smaller as the crime gets worse, those days of taking my spooning rod down to the beach for a late afternoon throw, have become like my camping trip to my favourite dams, mere memories. The fences sre getting higher and electricified, the security heavily armed, windows are being bullet proofed not just smash and grab anymore. Where will it all end up, tunnels with restricted access to get to and from work, shopping online with parcels being delivered to a point where they can be scanned, xray, and checked by sniffer dogs, laugh, i am sure people did 20 years ago when someone said you would be able to talk to another person anywhere in the world from a handheld device with a screen to see the other person. Try throw a party for a few friends, you need heavily armed gaurds to protect your visitors. I am rather surprised that so mnay people handed in their firearms without a fight. Look at all the movies of the future, everyone is heavily armed be it to protect yourself against things on this earth or from elsewhere. You are gona say yeah right, i hope for your sake you are right. What will this world look like in 20 years time? 20 + years ago when i started my bussiness, i didnt have a cellphone, had to rely on autopage, i didnt even have a computer, my invoices where all dont in a book, my deposits where mostly cheques done at the bank and only after a couple years, did i get my first computer in my bussiness, was a 286 with a dot matrix printer, no bluetooth devices etc, but most important i use to get out and see the world interact with other humans, because it was safe to do so and there werent devices you could spend your life behind texting and sending pictures, we experienced life. My office windows didnt even have burglar guards, yet now i have burglar guards inside and out, smash and grad on the window in case they smash the burglar guard off the wall, beams on the outside, electric fencing, 2 huge dogs,cctv all over the property with the dvr cast in a concrete slab with only the aerial accessable for me to view to prevent the criminlas from deleting the recording, at the rate crime is increasing, armed securty by the end of the year, man you goatta love living in this country, it is so exciting. If you are a smart entrepeneur you are in the security bussiness making tons of money


by the way thanks for the facts on power station info.

[tec0]

Ian's, you are not correct here. The up and running power stations is actually in good condition and others is in revamp phase. Our main problem is the local councils and metropolitan councils. They are the ones who do not put the maintenance money where it is due. They also over load the local town distribution points by keeping adding load. They do not service transformers etc. Just corrupting the money. The only real solution here would be to have Eskom as the sole distributer and cut the councils as middle man out.


Sun panels etc if correctly done do work and do save hugely on your bill, but it is still at this point an expensive lay out cost.

Problem with nuclear, the cost for installing and building a plant is the 3-4 time the cost of other conventional plants. You other problem is it take up to 15 Years to build and put one plant in operation. Now we come to the big problem: No matter how safe you make the plant, it can go into melt down. Small things can cause a melt down, but the main problem again is the human factor and then a natural disaster as it happened in Japan

I take it that the above was intended for me, that said if not then forgive my ignorance.

Allow me to explain; what you see there is numbers not facts. Fact is most of our high output power-stations had to cope with massive power demands from our local industries. The reality is Eskom get very low grade coal with inadequate Joules to produce maximum power. Make no mistake the do pay for the good stuff but because the grade is allow to vary and must only satisfy an average some liberties are taken…

The second and more immediate problem of burning such low grade coal is what it does to the actual plant. Or the processes that happen prior to burning coal. Upon entering the actual boiler you will find that the lower quality coal damages the boiler significantly. The ash is not as fine and basically you get a sandblasting effect that destroy other critical components.

Now if you take these added stresses and allow it to damage critical parts constantly and factor in that they cannot do maintenance due to the high power demands you will realise that we are in serious trouble.

So in my opinion those numbers that you provided will show a significant drop within this year still. But don’t take my word for it.

[schmidhauser]

The best solution here is to go green and and cut costs considerably.
efficiency standards are an essential part of appliances at home. this can reduces your costs quickly and efficiently.
Never overload your refrigerator or open its doors frequently. Allow it to operate at 10-20% less capacity in a place well served with air circulation. Set the temperature at required level, not too low. Cooking utensils must cover electric stove surface and do not fall short of it. Use pressure cookers and heat sensors to reduce energy consumption. Lets go green guys

[AndyD]

'Going Green' is not as straight forward as it sounds. In a domestic environment especially there's a lot of appliances that consume a given amount of energy to do a given task.

Take a kettle for example, if you need to increase the temperature of a litre of water by 70ºC it doesn't matter how 'green' your kettle is, it will require the same amount of energy. Same goes for your microwave or even your normal oven, if you need to cook food for a given period of time it doesn't matter what oven you have, the difference in power consumption will be minimal.

Even the refrigerator example you've used, there are marginal differences in efficiency between different makesand models but if the refrigerator is in good repair and the condensor is clean then the power consumption difference between fridges is again minimal. It's almost impossible to reduce the frequency of door opening and the temperature needs to be within the HACCP safe zone (<5ºC) to prevent food spoiling.

Washing machines are another power consumer but because they also need to heat the water there's little scope for efficiency improvements. Even if you use lesswater or heat to a lower temp then they need to use more physical action on the clothes to produce the same results. These are marketed as 'punch action' for example and often also trade off with longer running times.

To be honest I've all but given up trying to promote 'green' products to the few domestic customers we encounter. Most of our domestic customers have more money than God and aren't motivated by seeing a saving on their monthly bills, they're certainly not interested in making any life sacrifices such as arriving home mid-afternoon to a luke warm water cylinder or not being able to dim their lights because compact fluorescents have been installed.

*Edit* Please excuse my rudeness. Welcome to the forum schmidhauser.