The economic consequences of load shedding

[Marq]

Was looking for something completely unrelated and came across this page on the South african.info site for some reason.......

http://www.southafrica.info/doing_bu...gisa060206.htm

This report is dated february 2006 - two years ago - So what happened in the meantime to this 'Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative (ASGISA)' and Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka's BS on infrastructure development.

Besides the anthem being changed to 'sounds of silence' we have that old trusted ditty used at wedding speeches and the like ....'how the hell can we believe you'

[bullfrog]

I've had about 8 hours of power out cause of load shedding and more than 5 hours on another day. I believe the 5 hours on the one day might have been caused by a big fire, but there's no way to be sure.

The direct costs aren't quite as apparent in my business as I'm still quite small. I also choose to always work on my laptop which lasts the full duration of the outages in most cases but I still have to sit without internet which is a big issue as making sure that servers are running smoothly is 24/7 job. So once the power goes out all work at the office comes to a grinding stop. Most of the services I offer requires an internet connection so there's really nothing I can do without one.

In the web design department it hits a little harder. For me to get clients I need other businesses to do well enough to be able to afford to get web sites designed. With the power issues, businesses suffer which makes it harder to get clients. Not to mention the people who are generally in a bad mood, more so than usual, cause of all the power issues.

I'll definitely be investing in a ups for all the office peripherals and the adsl router.

[murdock]

air polution....10000 diesel genertors running at the same time pumping black smoke into the air...what is worse 1 power plant or a whole lot of small plants generating heat and polution...more fuel being used...noise polution??? all these issues are going to become a reality.

wake up in the morning no power your day starts
no breakfast
no hairdryer
no hot water for the baby bottle
get in your car and drive to work no robots chaos so called 4 way stop yeah right this is africa
get to work no computer...telephone exchange...machinery...
lights...factory has been broken into because the electric fence was down...alarm battery went flat...staff sit around with nothing to do until power comes on loss of production do we put the staff on short time until the power comes on???do we re-arrange lunch and tea times???start work later and make people work later???and if there is load shedding put the staff on short time???
go to site and to find load shedding has just started send the customer a call out fee...and then another call out fee when you go back???what happens if all the places i plan to work during the day are load shedding do i send my staff home without pay???
the list just goes on and on...wait till the water problems starts.

[duncan drennan]

I wonder if we'll see an increase in the sales of gas appliances, such as stoves and geysers? There probably already has been quite an increase. It is nice to know that I can at least cook even if the power is out.

I wonder if there is merit in changing large (industrial) electrical water heating applications over to gas?

As always, with the economic loss on the one hand, there are a number of opportunities that arise for certain industries.

[duncan drennan]

I saw a headline in the newspaper (didn't read the article) that the requirement for energy consumption reduction is 20%. That is a huge amount to drop!

You could probably drop all household consumption by that amount by just installing solar geysers (another group of people who are going to benefit), but what about within industry? Solar water heaters for industry? Where are the places that companies could cut 20% of electricity usage?

Does anyone know whether the aluminium smelters operate at night? Any chance for load shifting?

[Dave A]

Does anyone know whether the aluminium smelters operate at night?

An aluminium smelter runs 24/7. It's a continuous process of electrolysis that also produces the heat required to keep the contents molten. If the power goes down for even a very short period of time (I last had to deal with this a long time ago, but I think it is about 15 -30 minutes), the contents solidify, there is not enough electrical resistance to produce the heat to bring it back to a liquid, and the vat has to be scrapped.

Basically, if you power down, you pretty much have to scrap the smelter and start from scratch.

When I was with Eskom, you have no idea how seriously keeping power to the Richards Bay smelter was taken.

[Chatmaster]

I am completely confused.

In an interview with Eskom on Morning Live this morning the guy from Eskom clearly said that we have a policy of not supplying electricity to other countries if we have a shortage. Now over radio I heard Helen Zille state that they are supplying Zimbabwe with electricity.

Now we apperently broke the record as the country that has the most load shedding ever, if this is true, shouldn't Zimbabwe be at the top of the list? Unless we are not the only country that supplies them with electricity. That brings another question, can we not purchase electricity from other countries?

[murdock]

well i dont know who went and told durban electricity that i had not experienced load shedding at home yet..thanks anyway...for the first time today my power was cut from 11.30 till 14.00 today...swines.

looks like i am gona have to invest in a whole lot of chickens this week get them to cr*p as much as possible so that i can enjoy the benefits of bio fuel.
this problem is a reality.

i think we must be overtaking zimbabwe it the race to total destruction of all resources...interest rate hikes...bread price increases...crime...and now my accountanting firm has just informed me that their rates will be increased because of the lost time and additional costs to install UPS power for their offices.

[Dave A]

Oh yay! Durban has changed their load shedding schedule

Just when I had the routine all worked out!

To think I was going to compliment them on how well they've been sticking to their advertised schedule.

Now here is where it gets f'ing interesting.

We had a load shed today - 2.00pm to 4.00pm - which is exactly according to the "old" schedule. And yet I've just looked at their load shedding page now and it's all changed. According to that we should have been on the 10.00-12.30 shift today.

So what is the effective date of this change?
And best of all - we've programmed our client bookings based on the "old" schedule.

I really need to find a "screwed" smiley

[Graeme]

I had to drive right across the Durban Berea today whilst load shedding was in progress. What a pleasure! Everyone was treating robot intersections as 4-way stops. Traffic was proceeding slowly but oh so smoothly. Even the busy, busy Goble Road/Umgeni Road crossroad was working beautifully as a 4-way stop! Black taxi's and all!