Beware the blackouts

La Bella Figura patrons have their dinner by candlelight during a power outage in Illovo. Eskom says the only way for Joburg residents to avoid load shedding this winter is by being conservative with their electricity consumption, especially during peak evening periods. Picture: Antoine de Ras

Johannesburg - Switch off. This is the message Eskom is sending to South Africans, urging them to cut their electricity usage by 10 percent because demand is threatening to outstrip supply - and it’s not yet winter.

Over the past few weeks, the parastatal has been besieged by problems - including an unprotected strike at one of its major coal suppliers, Exxaro in Mpumalanga - that have put the national grid under pressure.

This, coupled with the amount of energy available to meet demand being low, could signal the possibility of winter load shedding.

In addition, Koeberg Unit 1 tripped two weeks ago and has had to undergo maintenance, and this has increased pressure on the grid.

Another contributing factor is damage caused by recent floods to a transmission line from Cahora Bassa Dam in Mozambique.

Eskom denied that load shedding was imminent despite its reserve margin sitting at 3.2 percent on Monday and 2.1 percent on Tuesday. Eskom’s reserve target was between 10 and 20 percent.

According to Business Day, half of this reserved capacity is being lost on unplanned outages and the rest to maintenance.

Eskom conducted a simulated load-shedding exercise this week.

But the parastatal said this was done as “part of its obligations in terms of the grid code, and as a prudent operator, Eskom conducts regular readiness exercises to ensure that its own national and regional control centres, and those of the municipalities, are prepared for emergencies should these arise”.

It added: “Eskom conducted its last national load-shedding readiness exercise in May 2012. It is conducting a more limited readiness exercise, with the control centres of participating metros and municipalities, to check the preparedness of the control centres.

But it warned: “We urge all South Africans to partner with us to keep the lights on and to use electricity sparingly, particularly during the evening peak period between 6pm and 9pm.”

The Star reported this month that Eskom’s power supply was being squeezed so tight and the utility’s options of getting more capacity was so limited that there were fears of a repeat of the mass load shedding of 2008.

Eskom spokeswoman Hilary Joffe would not say if load shedding was on the cards for this winter, saying Eskom was doing everything possible to keep energy flowing, including the buybacks from business and urging energy-saving measures in households, such as timer devices on geysers.

“It is our mandate to keep the lights on, and we are trying, but nobody said we can do this alone… we need help,” said Joffe.

The City of Joburg has made contingency plans for electricity and stated recently that its load-shedding days were over.

City Power has reinstated diesel and gas turbines, activated thousands of geyser ripple controls, obtained additional reserves from the Kelvin power station upgrade, issued thousands of fluorescent lights and started using solar power for traffic lights and public lighting.

Eskom is looking to Medupi to ease the pressure on the grid in the future. The parastatal says it is committed to ensuring that power flows from the first Medupi unit will start in December.

Replying to a question during the recent public hearings into Eskom’s third multi-year price determination application, Eskom said the commercial operation of Medupi Unit 6 - the first unit - might only start on February 28.

But it stressed that it was still targeting December for first power.

Eskom is also being plagued by high debt owed to it by municipalities.

About 40 percent of Eskom’s total sales are to municipalities.

Tips to save on your electricity bill:

* If you’re not using an appliance, switch it off and pull out the plug.

* A geyser uses 39 percent of all household electricity; switch it off to save electricity and money.

* Insulate geysers and water pipes as this will help the water to stay hot for longer. Reduce the temperature setting for your geyser’s thermostat to 60ºC, and shower instead of having a bath. Energy- and water-saving shower heads use less water and electricity.

* Use energy-saving globes instead of incandescent bulbs.

* Don’t leave televisions, DVD players and other electrical equipment in standby mode - rather switch them off completely.

* The same can be said for plug points and adaptors that hold cellphone chargers or bedside lights.

* To save money in your kitchen, close fridge doors as quickly as possible when taking items out - do not leave the fridge door open for longer than necessary.

* Keep room temperatures between 18ºC and 22ºC. Wear warm clothes and use hot-water bottles instead of using heaters to warmyour house.

* Reduce your pool pump’s operating time. Reset the pool pump timer to activate only for long enough to keep the pool clean.

Source: www.eskom.co.za


The Star/IOL

Eskom says power supply very tight

South African power utility Eskom said on Monday that available spare supply on its electricity network had fallen to just over 1 percent of total capacity due to a sharp increase in unplanned outages.

In a bi-weekly status update, Eskom said it had 31,708 MW of capacity for the Monday evening peak hours, when people return home and turn on stoves and air conditioners, against forecast demand of 31,228 MW, leaving a buffer of just under 500 MW.

The available capacity includes gas-fired emergency reserves.

The tiny difference between peak demand and available capacity brings Eskom close to the tight margins that led to rolling blackouts that hit Africa's largest economy in early 2008.

Eskom is walking a tightrope to keep power flowing to factories, mines and smelters that had to shut down for days four years ago, costing the economy billions of dollars in lost output and causing a spike in the price of metals such as gold and platinum, of which South Africa is a major producer.

Unplanned outages stood at 7,227 MW on Monday.

The power utility said last week that a transformer fire had cut electricity supplies to mines, hitting production.

While there are no rolling blackouts planned for now, Eskom has asked consumers to cut demand to ease strain on the system.

- Times Live

Mossel Bay power outage

MOSSEL BAY NEWS - Eskom plans to temporarily interrupt the electricity supply on Sunday, 21 October, between 06:00 and 18:00, to the following areas:

Point, Mossel Bay Central, Golf Estate, Heiderand, Pinnacle Point, Garden Route Casino, Santos, De Bakke, Da Nova, Tarka, D'Almeida, Extension 6, 7 ,8, 22, Joe Slovo, Boland Park, Dias Beach, Voorbaai, Vakansieplaas, Aalwyndal, Bayview, Island View, Seemeeupark, Hartenbos Heuwels, Sonskynvallei, Monte Christo, Hartenbos Estate, Klein-Brakriver, Riverside, Fraai Uitsig, Reebok, Rheebokhoogte and Tergniet.

- Mossel Bay Advertiser

12-hour power outage: Reminder

WILDERNESS NEWS - There will be a power outage in Wilderness and surrounding areas on Sunday, 21 October. The outage will take place from 06:00 till 18:00.

Areas that will be affected include Wilderness, Woodville, Hoekwil and surrounding areas.

Work will be done by Eskom on their overhead lines.

In the event of adverse weather conditions on Sunday, 21 October, the outage will be postponed to Sunday, 28 October.

- George Herald

Durbanites still in the dark after storm

Hundreds of residents in the south of Durban have been without electricity for nearly 48 hours following a heavy storm earlier this week.

EThekwini Municipality's Deena Govender says 17 pole transformers and spans of overhead cables were brought down during Wednesday evening's storm.

It's affected the power supply to parts of Sunnyside Park, Engonyameni and Elukhanyisweni.

He says however they've since managed to restore supply to Seadoone extension, Kingsburgh and Adams Mission.

Power to the KwaMakutha and Folweni areas is expected to start coming back online between now and 6pm this evening.

Govender says technicians have been deployed to all affected areas and should have supply restored by latest on Sunday.

Govender's re-iterated that affected residents should rather email complaints to custocare@elec.durban.gov.za instead of phoning them through.

- East Coast Radio News

Power supply under strain: Eskom

Electricity supply is under strain as Eskom tries to address a maintenance backlog at its power stations, the parastatal said on Thursday.

Koeberg nuclear power station's Unit Two was not contributing to the national grid as it was shut for planned and maintenance, Eskom said in its bi-weekly status bulletin.

Supply from Mozambique's Cabora-Bassa system had also taken a dip because of a transmission fault.

Eskom said these problems put added strain on the power system, whose performance the company described as "volatile over the past couple of weeks".

"Eskom's power stations are ageing and have been run hard in the past few years in order to meet demand."

In the last year, Eskom made maintenance a priority, as it was necessary to reduce unplanned outages.

"Significant progress has been made and Eskom is on track to eliminate the maintenance backlog by the end of 2013."

Eskom urged the public to reduce electricity consumption.

On Thursday evening, the peak demand for electricity was estimated at 32,319MW, with capacity of 34,788 MW.

On Wednesday, peak demand of 32,566 MW was met by the available capacity of 35,050 MW.

- Times Live

Mossel Bay power cut this weekend

MOSSEL BAY NEWS - There will be a possible power cut in the Mossel Bay CBD, Da Nova, Extensions 6, 7, 8, 22, D'Almeida, Boland Park, Heiderand, Village on Sea and Mossel Bay Golf Estate on Sunday, 16 September.

Weather permitting, the electricity supply to consumers will be interrupted either partially or completely between 08:00 and 17:30.

If the weather is unfavourable, disruption will take place the following day.

- Mossel Bay Advertiser

Kragonderbrekings in Tshwane

Johannesburg – Gedeeltes in Tshwane se noordelike woonbuurte het Sondag kragonderbrekings ervaar, het die stad gesê.

'n 143 kV-kragmas wat vernietig is, het op die grond geval en kragonderbrekings veroorsaak, het Nomasonto Ndlovu, woordvoerder, gesê.

Omgewings wat deur die kragonderbrekings geraak word sluit in Wonderboom, Annlin, Sinoville, Bon Accord, Government Village line, Doornpoort, Pretoria-Noord, Wolmer, Tileba, Dorandia, Ninapark en Theresapark.

Nomasonto het gesê die elektrisiteit sal hopelik teen 14:00 weer aangaan.

- SAPA/Nuus24

Snow: thousands still without power

Three thousand residents in the Nottingham Road, Cedarville, Gowry and Rainbow Lakes areas have been without electricity for a week after heavy snowfall in the area.

Five transmission lines to KwaZulu-Natal were damaged by the bad weather last Tuesday.

Eskom says it's since managed to get three of the lines running and technicians are working on the remaining two.

The utility's Hillary Joffe says the repairs aren't causing interruptions to the power supply. She says smaller local distribution lines are to blame.

"That's because of faults on the local lines that serve those areas. Access has still been a problem, even though the weather has improved, and our technicians have been doing their best to get to the faults and repair them," she said.

Joffe says they're looking at ways of making the grid more resilient to bad weather.

"The situation could have been worse because the weather really was very severe. But we're certainly looking at our lines - and repairing them."

- East Coast Radio

Eskom faces new power crisis

Johannesburg – Eskom again faces power shortages. Within six years the utility will have a 40m tonne coal deficit to meet its annual requirements.

This shortfall is owing to Mpumalanga’s shrinking coal reserves, which need urgent supplementation with coal from the Waterberg area, which has 70bn tonnes of shallow coal reserves lying between Lephalale and the Botswana border.

Every year after 2018 the shortfall will assume greater proportions because of Mpumalanga’s shrinking reserves.

By 2040 only five of the 13 coal-fired power stations in Mpumalanga will still have coal.

Transport costs to Mpumalanga will be between R100 and R200/t, which means the coal will cost 50% to 100% more than the R209 that Eskom is currently paying for coal from those mines mostly close to the power stations. Electricity consumers will ultimately bear these costs.

Railway lines are now hurriedly being built to get the Waterberg coal in Mpumalanga, but the only long-term solution is to build more power stations at Medupi and Matimba in the Waterberg area, where half of the country’s remaining coal resources lie. Last month Eskom asked the 15 owners how much coal they can make available for the Mpumalanga power stations.

Exxaro, the only one of the 15 mineral-right owners producing coal, said it was prepared to provide 2m tonnes a year by 2014 and, by 2018, to increase this to 30m or even 40m tonnes, depending on Eskom’s specifications.

Transnet committed itself to improving the carrying capacity of the railway line to 23m tonnes/year by 2016 and eventually to push this up to 80m to accommodate, inter alia, for coal exports from Botswana.

Owners of the 70bn tonnes of coal in the Bushveld are however frustrated and disillusioned by the delay in providing a legal framework for erecting private, independent power stations while the country pays higher prices because of electricity shortages.

The electricity regulation bill and that on independent system operators, which will remove control of the country’s power grid from Eskom so that independent operators can also use it, has been dragging on for three years.

Construction of private coal-fired power stations cannot start before these matters are finalised. It has become increasingly obvious that independent power generators are the key to the country’s energy problems.

There is also enormous frustration in the mining industry because Eskom is buying electricity back from chrome smelters.

This winter this has brought half of the ferrochrome industry to a standstill and resulted in South Africa surrendering considerable market share to China.

“How can Eskom be proud of us getting through winter without power failures while effectively there has been commercialised load-shedding?” a player in the ferrochrome industry said to Sake24.

- Sake24

Update: Power Failure - Port Elizabeth

Press Release

August 11, 2012

PROGRESS MADE WITH RESTORATION OF ELECTRICITY SUPPLY

The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality wishes to advise residents affected by the electricity failure earlier today that good progress is being made with undoing the damage caused by the explosion of the high-voltage transformer at the Mount Road substation.

Mr Carl Hempel, NMBM Director of Distribution, has confir
med that the full return of power to all residents will occur sometime after 7pm this evening, in the early to mid evening.

The NMBM regrets any inconvenience caused to residents by this unforeseen power failure.

Ends.

Issued on behalf of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality by the Acting Director of Communications, Ms Marthie Nel.

Total blackout ‘a real danger’

COLD COMFORT: Mthatha residents like Gcobisa Tshefu should rather use gas heaters to warm themselves and homes to prevent a looming power blackout in Mthatha and surrounds. Picture: LULAMILE FENI

LARGE parts of the former Transkei, including Mthatha, are on the brink of a total power blackout if residents don’t drastically cut their electricity consumption. Eskom warned this week that many areas in Transkei were experiencing power supply challenges due to severe weather conditions that hit most of the country this week.

The conditions have reportedly resulted in the overloading of Eskom’s system in KwaZulu-Natal and some parts of the Eastern Cape that are feeding electricity to several towns in the former Transkei region
This follows heavy snowfalls and rains which fell in some parts of the Eastern Cape which affected the regional electricity infrastructure network.
Between 40 000 and 50 000 customers, mainly in the former Transkei, have reportedly been left without power in their homes since Wednesday.
Eskom’s communications and stakeholder manager in the Eastern Cape, Ntombekhaya Mafumbatha said the most affected towns included Mthatha, Ngqeleni, Tsolo, Matatiele, Mount Frere, Port St Johns, Libode, Willowvale, Qumbu, Flagstaff, Lusikisiki and Cofimvaba .

“Eskom technicians are working hard to restore the power supply in some of the areas that have been affected,” she said.
“The major challenge though is that we have areas that are not accessible due to the bad weather. They [areas] are now beginning to overload due to high usage of electricity by consumers.”
Mafumbatha urged stakeholders in affected areas to minimise power usage. “When there is overloading, some areas are switched off and we don’t want a situation where people have no electricity,” she added.
Eskom has helicopters on standby that will take off to assist with electricity restoration as soon as the weather clears.
The parastatal had also sent out a stern warning to consumers to treat electricity appliances as “live” as there was a possibility that power could come back without warning.

The situation is so bad that Eskom has warned authorities in King Sabata Dalindyebo (KSD) Municipality about the possibility of a sudden blackout in Mthatha.
KSD spokesman Sonwabo Mampoza confirmed the warning. “The municipality has received a critical call from Eskom informing us of the serious state of the power,” he said.
“The chances of Mthatha having a sudden blackout are very high and the consumers are urged to reduce the load by switching off all unnecessary appliances .”
The spokesman said that while KSD could not stress the seriousness of the situation enough, it would be in the best interest of all electricity users to co-operate and reduce demand on the supply network.
Ratepayers Association of Mthatha chairman Graeme Alexander called on municipal authorities to start focusing on promoting the use of alternative renewable energy sources.

“People have heaters going day and night because of the cold but I believe that maybe the time has come to look at alternative energy sources. In the meantime, people could also be encouraged to use gas as well,” said Alexander.

- Daily Dispatch

Power Failure: Port Elizabeth

Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality wrote:

Press Release

August 11, 2012

ELECTRICITY INTERRUPTION IN AREAS OF METRO

Last night, a high-voltage transformer at the Mount Road substation blew up, causing extensive damage to equipment and the substation itself. Unfortunately, the electricity supply to a number of areas in the Metro has been affected, including North End from Kempston Road, Central, the Russell Road area, Perridgevale, up to Greenacres, Sydenham and Holland Park.

Mill Park and the areas of the Mill Park side of Russel Road/Cape Road will not be affected.

Municipal crews are hard at work to repair the damage and the power supply will be re-established later today.

Eskom working to restore power

Johannesburg - Eskom technicians continued with efforts to restore power in parts of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape, the power utility said on Thursday.

"We are working to restore supply as soon as possible, and improved weather conditions will facilitate this," it said in a statement.

It said although electricity has been restored in some areas, it was still working to address the problem.

According to the power utility about 16 700 households were affected by power cut because of weather in KwaZulu-Natal. In Eastern Cape the number was 15 000 on Wednesday.

Eskom's infrastructure was hit by snow and rain in some parts of the country.

It is urging customers to use electricity sparingly and switch off all appliances that are not essential particularly during the peak hours between 17:00 and 21:00.

- SAPA/News24

Sneeu laat dele van Vrystaat sonder krag

Bloemfontein – Gure weer het twee plattelandse gemeenskappe in die Vrystaat Woensdag sonder krag gelaat, het Eskom gesê.

Sterkfontein en Swinburn, naby Harrismith, het kragonderbrekings gehad, het die provinsiale woordvoerder, Stefanie Jansen van Rensburg, gesê.

Ses-en-veertig Eskom-kliënte in Sterkfontein en 183 in die Swinburn-omgewing is daardeur geraak.

"Ons sal verseker dat die situasie so gou moontlik aandag geniet."

Sneeu in die gebied maak dit moeilik vir Eskom se spanne om vir foute in die stelsel te soek.



- SAPA/NUUS24

Save power, pleads Eskom

Eskom has appealed to East Coasters to do whatever they can to conserve power during the cold snap - or the province will be faced with more electricity outages.

Eskom's Hillary Joffe says they were forced to loadshed in parts of eThekwini and KwaDukuza earlier today because five of the key transmission lines to KZN have been downed by the snow and rain.

Joffe says it's virtually impossible to tell whether they will have to deliberately cut power again.

"We do really apologise, but this is the kind of thing which is beyond our control. When the bad weather knocks lines out like that - very suddenly - as it did in the very early hours of this morning, it's very hard to tell people in advance. We have to take action as fast as we can, but we certainly will work hard to communicate to the extent that we can; but we can't always promise to tell you in advance because the weather doesn't always tell us in advance what it's going to do."

Joffe's encouraged East Coasters to call Eskom's faults numbers as soon as they experience outages.

You can report faults to share-call number 08600 37566 or through SMS on 084 655 5778, 082 941 3707 and 083 647 1951.

- EAST COAST RADIO

Eskom to restore power in parts of KZN

JOHANNESBURG - Eskom on Wednesday said it was working to restore electricity to some 70,000 households which have been left without power in KwaZulu-Natal because of bad weather.

The power went out in parts of Durban, the Natal Midlands and southern KwaZulu-Natal earlier this morning.

Eskom said it has been difficult for technicians to fix the problem because of heavy snowfall.

The utility's Hillary Joffe said, “Five of the transmission lines that carry power to the province have been knocked out by the severe weather and the snow. We are working to restore those lines as soon as we can.”

Meanwhile, as temperatures plunge in Gauteng, several suburbs on the West Rand have also been without electricity.

City Power technicians have been working on the problem.

- EWN

Snow causes massive power outages in Kwazulu Natal

Large parts of KZN were plunged into darkness this morning after Eskom cut its power supply to stabilise the grid.

Eskom says KZN lost power in the Bulwer, Howick, Mooi River, Estcourt, and Colenso areas due to adverse weather.

Because of this, 'load reduction' had to be activated at different municipalities to assist with stabilising the system. This affected around 20 000 people in eThekwini and 25 000 in KwaDukuza.

Eskom says distribution network faults have affected an additional 25 000 residents.

Eskom says an emergency has been delcared, with a provincial joint command centre set up to deal with the situation.

"Teams have been deployed to patrol the affected networks, as well as assess accessibility of affected areas. As a result, restoration times cannot be estimated," Eskom said in a statement.

Meawnwhile, Durban electricity officials say power has been restored to large parts of eThekwini's northern areas.

The outage impacted operations here at East Coast Radio from just before 7.30am until about 8am.

The affected areas north of Durban include Tongaat, Stanger, Durban North, Newlands, Phoenix, Umhlanga and Umzinyathi.

Deena Govender's appealed to residents across the province to cut down their usage this morning.

People have been urged to report faults so teams can locate and repair the damage. You can report them to share-call number 08600 37566 or through SMS on 084 655 5778, 082 941 3707 and 083 647 1951.

- East Coast Radio

West Rand hit by power outage

Large parts of Gauteng’s West Rand was left without power as snow continued to fall across the province on Tuesday.

It appears that the cold weather affected electricity supply in both Roodepoort and Krugersdorp.

Johannesburg City Power spokesperson Louis Pieterse said technicians are working to restore power to affected areas.

“It is a very large power failure. We have dispatched technicians to determine the cause.”

Meanwhile, power utility Eskom urged South Africans to switch off non-essential appliances.

Eskom spokesperson Hillary Joffe said they were closely monitoring demand to prevent any disruptions.

- EWN

Eskom readies for severe weather woes

Johannesburg – The country’s electricity provider‚ Eskom‚ said late on Tuesday afternoon it is working hard to protect the power supply from disruption as a result of adverse weather conditions.

It said it has revised upwards its forecast for this evening’s peak demand by about 500 megawatts (MW)‚ with snow and severe cold driving up demand across the country.

“The revised peak demand for this evening is estimated at 35 648 MW‚ while available capacity (including the open cycle gas turbines) is expected to be 37 398 MW.

"The power system will be tight during the evening peak‚ particularly from about 5pm to 7pm‚ and Eskom urges all customers to switch off all non-essential appliances during this time‚” the power parastatal said.

Severe weather conditions‚ including strong winds and snow‚ have affected some of Eskom’s transmission and distribution infrastructure in areas such as the Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

Eskom said it has staff and vehicles on standby and has managed to prevent interruptions to power supply in most parts of the country. It is working to restore power as soon as possible to the affected areas.

“Peak demand for the rest of the week is anticipated to be lower because of the public holiday on Thursday (August 9) and school holiday on Friday (August 10).

"The peak demand forecast for the rest of the week is 33 738 MW on Wednesday‚ 33 089 MW on Thursday and 33 085 MW for Friday.

“This week’s peak demand is not expected to be as high as the peak demand for the year to date‚ which was 35 865 MW on June 11 2012‚” Eskom said.

- FIN24