The economic consequences of load shedding

[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]

Load shedding

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!

[Dave A]

That makes me wonder if accident rates at intersections is going up or down at the moment...

[Dave A]

Economists estimate the cost to the economy has run into hundreds of millions of rands, adding to the woes brought on by the steep falls in financial markets triggered by growing fears of a US recession.

"The potential impact is a lot greater than the international [market] turbulence if you find that South Africa has run into a wall in terms of how business can invest and how the economy can grow," said Nicholas Kennedy, head of emerging markets at 4CAST in London.

"With the backdrop of the rand weakening, the global growth slowing and the dependence South Africa has on portfolio financing, anything that can potentially dent economic growth is very negative for local equities and the current account financing," he said.

The country's current account deficit stood at 8,1% of gross domestic product in the third quarter of 2007 and is seen remaining wide as the country spends billions of dollars on imports to develope its infrastructure.
from M&G here

Along with tales of people deciding this is the last straw...

Ouch!

[murdock]

i must just clear something up...i mentioned a company suffering...well i was little out....they actually have 191 people on staff not 70...they lost 44 hours production at a cost of R10000.00 an hour last week alone just on the machine standing...not including staff sitting around waiting for the power to come back on...and the one hour it takes to reset the machine ready for production...the cost of the generator alone not including installation R2.6 million...and thats not the worst part...they have recenlty invested R30 million on machines to service customers needs who are now wanting to move their bussiness elsewhere because of deadlines not being kept because of the load shedding...is durban electricity trying to close companies down??? smiths and frame textiles are still running without load shedding...

why dont they build a power plant just for alusaf this would solve all the loading problems...for years to come.

[murdock]

anyone got any contact details for the right person to speak toat eskom or durban metro...i need to find out if this company quallifies for subsidies for the generator...and the fact that they has spent thousands of rands on power factor correction to make their factory run efficently..with a power factor of .96 i would think they should be rewarded in some small way instead of be punished by loading shedding...there are lots of companies out there with power factors of under .7 which means their factories are running at a 30% loss...in america you get penalties if your power factor is below .95...it should be the same in this country.


what this all means in english is that if you use 100 amps of power and you have a .7 power factor you can only use 70 amps (or 70 % efficency) then you start overloading everything ...we need dudley stevens to explain this properly he is the specialist in this field.

[Marq]

Tourists guest houses and restuarants

The New Durban schedule is out now after Ethekwini electricity has given great thought to each area and its concerns.

So now we will have no juice every night from 20h00. There are only 50 guest houses in my area and at least another 50 in the area just north who are also in the same time zone. We have been out during the day up to now which with bit of planning one can get around.

We will be welcoming our guests, who include a large percentage of overseas people, at this - their usual arrival time - in the dark. We have to change our intercom system as they would have to phone us to let us know they have arrived - thats if they have our phone number (most use emails beforehand). My water supply operates on a pumped system so thats the shower and clean up out of the question after they have arrived all hot and sticky. They will be unable to have access to emails and internet to tell their families that they have arrived, they will not be able to watch TV, so will probably have to explore Durban outside of the area they have specifically chosen to come and stay and visit. Thats of course providing they can get out of the property if the battery still operates the gates after a few hours or get back in. We will be unable to direct them in the area to restaurants to eat as we usually do as these businesses will also be down every night at their busiest time of operations. I cannot direct them by telling them to go through three traffic lights and turn left as there are no traffic lights. They will have to dodge the terrible durban drivers who do not know what the correct driving skill is when approaching a traffic light out scenario and put their lives at risk.

What a holiday/business trip they are in for. All the fun of a third world country run by corrupt officials not doing their functions operating on candle power.

So here's another example of foresite and good planning by Mr Sutcliffe and his merry band of officious officials. At least 150 small business in one area - b&b's restaurants etc. taken out, at one of their busiest times of the day all in one hit 4 times a week. Not only are the businesses taken out, but their clients who include a good percentage of overseas tourists and investors are inconvenienced and left in the dark. Well why should we be the only ones left powerless?

Lets gear up for the A1, Celine Dion, James Blunt, and 2010 and show the rest of the world how free energy and zero point energy operates - South African Style.

New adventure movie is also on its way - The lost city of lights or was that the lost lights of a once great city - a swashbuckling tale of adventure in the place they call darkest africa. Or how about - how I once nearly spent my fortune in a country, but then I actually went there.

[irneb]

Well, just looking at the company I work for (based in Sandton) - we're doing everything on computers so ... I can calculate we're losing about R14000 per 2h30 loadshed on Salaries alone. That means about R225,000 per month if you average 4 loadsheds per week, which we've found.

This doesn't even include any loss due to deadlines missed or clients deciding this company is not good enough to use. We're working with overseas clients mostly so they don't understand "Load shedding" - they think it's something you do in the toilet.

Or other factors such as rent, equipment malfunctions (because of power spikes), late arrivals due to traffic being a nightmare, etc. etc. etc.

This now becomes viable to invest in a genny, even if you're looking at about R3.50 per kW/h for diesel instead of Eishkom's R0.30 to R0.50.

[irneb]

And here's another nice thing that's happened ... Eskom's cut the power to the mines, apparently for a few weeks. Is this going to cause some retrenchments? And then? What's next? Sasol? The refineries getting crude oil from the harbors?

Imagine what impact that will have on the already struggling economy.

[Chatmaster]

And here's another nice thing that's happened ... Eskom's cut the power to the mines, apparently for a few weeks.

I guess this is a good time to have shares in the Gold and Platinum sectors

[murdock]

anyone got any contact details for the right person to speak toat eskom or durban metro...i need to find out if this company quallifies for subsidies for the generator...and the fact that they has spent thousands of rands on power factor correction to make their factory run efficently..with a power factor of .96 i would think they should be rewarded in some small way instead of be punished by loading shedding...there are lots of companies out there with power factors of under .7 which means their factories are running at a 30% loss...in america you get penalties if your power factor is below .95...it should be the same in this country.

we have managed to move this company away from the load shed grid

[Dave A]

Well done Murdock