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Thread: The economic consequences of load shedding

  1. #41
    just me duncan drennan's Avatar
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    I think it might have run a little differently.

    Eskom was having a larger and larger deficit (due to the unplanned outages, i.e. coal and maintenance issues). Apparently nearly 10000MW was out on 28 Jan. With this large a deficit you start to face two options, either shut down a large chunk of power (in this case the mines), or have the whole country go down. The grid could become unstable and poof - no more electricity, for anyone, for a while.

    In that situation I would negotiate with my largest consumers (fewer to manage) and strike a deal, which seems to be the case with the mines. For the miners it is a case of either maintaining the mines at 50% energy, or possibly losing them alltogether (if there is no electricity). Lesser of two evils I suppose.

    In the meantime Eskom has to work super hard to get the capacity back up to "normal."

    Just a thought.
    Last edited by duncan drennan; 30-Jan-08 at 02:59 PM.
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  2. #42
    Moderator IanF's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave A View Post
    I don't know about how everyone else is going, but this week I've suffered no load shedding anywhere. Has load shedding in the cities been reduced? It would seem so.
    Dave
    We had 2 hours on Monday. For irony we had just printed a proposal for a French company for a power station on the weekend and they came in to get an invoice. We had no power so I had to give them a PDF invoice as we invoice from a laptop, so I could do that. The guy then said we have another 5 years to go of power cuts.
    Only stress when you can change the outcome!

  3. #43
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by dsd View Post
    Just a thought.
    Same with my post - frankly your scenario is more likely but mine was wicked
    Or maybe just hopeful that this government does actually get concerned about its citizens every now and then.

    Anyway, with the mines coming back on stream, I expect we'll be back to major rolling blackouts again soon enough.

  4. #44
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Load shedding to hit food inflation
    The negative impact of power outages on bakeries, milk producers and processors, and bottlers of perishable foods, which have been suffering severe losses from electricity blackouts, is adding to concerns of no imminent easing in food inflation, says economist from Standard Bank, Danelee van Dyk.

    Sharp food inflation, together with energy issues, have been the key bugbears in keeping South Africa's CPIX inflation above the upper 6% upper band for nine months running. The latest data today shows CPIX at a whopping 8.6 percent year-on-year.

    "The financial loss related to the current load shedding by a leading milk producer is already estimated at three million rand, but could run to as much as R600-million. Production losses as a result of power outages could reduce supply in these food groups, which may find its way into higher food prices," explains Van Dyk.
    full story from Business Report here
    Load shedding is certainly a threat when it comes to food safety as it increases the prospects of breaking the cold chain.

    Saturday night we had to throw away a chicken that was meant for dinner. Sue had bought it that morning. Once the packaging was removed, there was that sickly smell of meat gone bad. The cold chain had been broken.

  5. #45
    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Jobs are on the line.
    About 800 workers face retrenchment at BHP Billiton's Bayside aluminium smelter in Richards Bay, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) said on Tuesday.

    Spokesperson Mziwakhe Hlangani said management had confirmed that it would be issuing final notices to the affected workers at the weekend and the retrenchments would be effected on April 1.

    The development follows Eskom's demand that big electricity consumers reduce their power consumption by 10%.

    He said the drastic decision to lay-off metalworkers took place at a time when Numsa had made earnest appeals to the African National Congress and the minerals and energy parliamentary committee to intervene, as planned retrenchments were connected to the countrywide power crisis.

    Rather than ensuring that other feasible alternatives were considered -- such as buying big industrial power generators -- the resources company once intimated that it planned to relocate its smelters to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the union charged.

    Numsa said it had always been aware that the closure of smelters in the town would affect more than 20 000 families. And, for that reason the union called on the government and other stakeholders to urgently adopt a social plan, because the area would be negatively affected.
    full story from M&G here

  6. #46
    just me duncan drennan's Avatar
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    I'm quite concerned about the words flying around the proposed electricity tariff hike.

    We're being told (via the media) that the tariff hike will stop load shedding. Now I'm sure Eskom would deny this, but let's quickly look at the implications.

    If a tariff hike will stop load shedding, that means that the current (as in today) problem we have is not a capacity one, but that Eskom cannot afford to continue their operations (inputs costs are higher than what they are allowed to sell electricity for).

    If that is the case, then Eskom is not load shedding to ensure capacity, but is load shedding to save money (it costs them more to produce electricity than they can sell it for).

    If that is the case, we are being raped by Eskom and the government is aiding and abetting.
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  7. #47
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    at least some people are getting rich quick selling generators and invertors...i spoke to someone at tedelex they are assembling 350 unit a day and cannot keep up with the supply... at between 4 and 5 thousand for the small unit and between 6 and 7 thousand rand for the bigger unit...they have purchased 35 million rands worth of batteries to try keep up with the demand...so its not all bad news for everyone...

    generator prices have increased from R4500 for a 5.5kva unit to Ralmost R10000.00 if you can find one...and i hear zuma mentioned a more enviroment friendly elctricity supply does he know that a generator produces more than 5 times the amount of fumes than a motor car...and i cant say it must be too pleasant for people working close to the companies who have had big diesel generators fitted...because of the noise... and with the petrol and diesel price going up again running these unit is not very cost effective...this is my take on this issue...i believe the man on the street just doesnt know what the powers that be are up to.

    i also dont know what we are going to do in 5 years when this problem becomes an even bigger one because of expansion...

    why are we being punished...being told if we dont save 10 % we will have load shedding how are the people who caused this whole fiasco being punished with big bonuses???

    it doesnt bother me any more my house and office have battery backup lights...invertors...and a generator which i havent had to use yet...but they are in place just in case.

    my problem is working on sites where the power goes off while i am working on the system...then comes back on...i had to leave a site last week without testing the installation because of the load shedding...and unfortunately i didnt get lucky...we had a problem on the site...by the time the power came back on i had already left for the weekend and only managed to get back to the site on monday...thank goodness no one was injured and the equipment on site wasnt damaged.

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