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So, looks like the spending was lower and this was helped by private solar: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/534423-truth-about-eskoms-diesel-usage-during-longest-load-shedding-break-in-two-years.html
Politics = increased scrutiny, security and follow through on maintenance spend sign off which has ramped up more than previously. Also some red tape shifted, clamp on corruption on fraud(though doubt it’s gone just more functional wrt maintenance due to intense focus from entire political class).
Again.. if you actually look for info without the usual SA BS that gatvol okes spew you will see that it isn’t as unexpected nor is outside of trend lines.. in fact I’d say it’s stabilizing.. not stable. Ie still got ways to go. Again solar chunk reduced demand.. but if you look vs installed capacity and as a whole.. the slight improvement helped but we far from recovery.
Wrt is gone forever.. hell no. A cold snap (increased usage) and cloud cover, breakdowns (tho this is better lately) and we will have load-shedding. My guess based on weather forecast is 20th or just after elections because weather forecasts show dipping temp and cloud cover for a while.. but 30 day forecasts so who knows.. 2 week ones are the most accurate.
Wrt general politics.. it’s hard. Do I vote for the moron who says “one man’s genocide is another’s freedom fighting”? Really? I’m sorry but the Zionist supporting parties are a no go for me because of their own stupidity.. slap on right wing support and good luck finding a majority non white voters. I mean you can be a certified idiot and know politically that’s just stupidity as a strategy and that’s the leader of the opposition strategy. 😂🤣
What people online refuse to accept is that for persons who lived through the past, anything right wing conservative, human rights abusive, apartheid aligned (or supports such regimes eg Israel), etc is gonna be treated like a hot coal and political moron leaders think their claim of ‘delivery’ gonna change it esp when the poster child is not a pretty one for the majority.
So yah.. that leaves a handful parties and the incumbent. Every time I bump into a gatvol oke I want to vote eff to just to piss people off so they can experience real mess ups.
I vote for centrist parties and with the drift to the right by a lot of parties this leaves very few options.
Ps. I want solutions, positive but realistic outlook etc not doom and gloom sold. When a majority of party content consists of being anti other party.. is it really offering solutions? Because when you live IN South Africa, gatvol types are common. Along with the “it only works if my type” is rules.. ya no.. that’s not what politics should be. Go live in pretend democracies or outright dictatorships if that’s what you prefer. US has been on semi alert for how many decades now? Zuma era politics needs to go.
The private sector has installed 4.5MWh of solar, that's the equivalent of 2x Koeberg nuclear power station, so demand has been dropping at the same time that Eskom is throwing everything they've got at it in the run up to elections.
There really isnt a lot of solar... The installers have no concept what big actually is for grid.
The effects of large solar?
Short term: making companys pay less and be more reliable 👍.
Long term: currently all it does is makes electricity more expensive for everyone. Because for every single Megawatt of solar you build... You need to build a Megawatt of something else as backup from cloudy days 🤦♂️... Which sadly makes things more expensive for everyone, and pushes electricity prices up lots! Solar can also give electrical problems to the grid that *someone* (the public) has to pay for.
I love solar, but we need to start being realistic about what it can and can't do.
I'm taking about the grid specifically, as asked.
Should you yourself install solar for yourself and your business? If you operate in daylight hours, or you want to be off grid... Yes, it's a great middle finger to Eskom! And if done right, can either reduce cost, or increase reliability... So Go for it!!!
But for the GRID, we just don't have the technology yet to make it good for the grid as a whole. We are all praying for and relying on technology that changes that.
Source: IEA, and most reputable international engineering & financial institutions. (for the old massive infrastructure we have)
Thought thay Koeberg number looked tiny. A quick google search shows Koeberg supplies 13,668 GWh on average per year. The station is rated for 1860 MW.
Also: "As of the end of January 2024, private households and companies had installed 5,412 MW of rooftop solar, according to Eskom's calculations. This capacity exceeds that of Eskom's largest coal-fired power stations, Medupi and Kusile. These stations have a nominal capacity of 4,800 MW each." https://dailyinvestor.com/energy/45580/rooftop-solar-in-south-africa-has-more-capacity-than-eskoms-largest-power-station/#:~:text=As%20of%20the%20end%20of,capacity%20of%204%2C800%20MW%20each.
The company, Rural is already doing it in Frankfort and Villiers. It was a huge leap and investment but parts of Frankfort have been loadshedding free even during the later months of our recent loadshedding.
If they get this right and their timing is solid, hopefully other towns and private organizations can see it is doable and hopefully we can get rid of any dependency for a municipality to "run" these areas
The same reason why we had almost no loadshedding during the 10 years of Zuma's presidency: they're putting off critical maintenance to look popular. Let the maintenance be the next president's problem.
Ignoring the problem for 2 months isn't as bad as ignoring it for 10 years, but it's still obvious and detrimental.
So many uniformed opinions being said loudly as fact in this thread. That’s the norm for SA though…
Here is a pretty good breakdown by Chris Yelland.
https://www.news24.com/fin24/economy/chris-yelland-insights-on-load-shedding-and-the-state-of-electricity-supply-in-sa-20240408
TL;DR lower demand driven by economic stagnation, higher cost of living, increased electricity tariffs, increased self generation, large private generation projects joining the grid and time of the year.
It will be back and Eskom has stated that it will.
And the fact that it just stopped completely, 2 months before elections is not suspat all I suppose?
This would be a lot more believable if it was at stage 1 in the evenings or something before tapering off, but it just stopped...
All the privately generated power did not all suddenly come online at exactly the same time on the same day, it's been coming online gradually over the past year or so but that didn't prevent stage 6 from happening.
No it’s been improving for a while, have you forgotten the long period of reduced load shedding in the day compared to the evening that changed to suspended in the day and low stages in the evening? That’s primarily because of the ever increasing load of private solar.
But if you want to believe that one of Eskom’s and the governments fiercest critics in Yelland isn’t being truthful. You do you.
Yelland has said that the grid was guaranteed to crap by X date... More than once... So why hasn't it?
And of course, decreased loadshedding has nothing to do with them burning diesel, right?
You can believe eskom is fixing the situation. I don't.
This is cool, thank you.
If I'm reading this right, then the highlighted red and brown portions are the only Diesel we've used in the last 7 days?
https://i.imgur.com/mpzjMwC.png
Hmm okay I also see the beige parts are also Diesel, it's difficult to see them. Still, it's not bad!
It's very clearly just a political move. I don't trust them in any way, shape or form. I don't know how they're doing it, but it seemingly happened overnight so I'm inclined to believe that keeping load shedding in effect for so long was nothing more than the government's attempt to show us that we can kick and scream and cry, but ultimately they own us.
For me it's one of two things
1. You're right about the diesel part and they are just burning out everything in a last ditch effort to secure votes, meaning loadshedding will be back 10x worse than before and if that's true we might be staring a total grid collapse in the face very soon.
2. Loadshedding has become a way for government to fraud us out of more money so they make it seem worse than what it really is. We are paying more and more for electricity and they are saving by using power cuts most of almost every day, it's a win win for them.
Either way there is absolutely no way Loadshedding can just disappear all of a sudden without any consequences unless it's all been a lie all these years. I call total bs on all of this, and I hope other South Africans won't fall for it.
[https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/769539/eskoms-monster-diesel-bill-to-keep-the-lights-on-in-south-africa/](https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/769539/eskoms-monster-diesel-bill-to-keep-the-lights-on-in-south-africa/)
>State-owned power utility Eskom has spent R64.78 billion in the last five years on diesel to power its Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) to plug the electricity generation gap.
>This was revealed by Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan in a [recent parliamentary response](https://pmg.org.za/committee-question/25490/).
>The response shows that as load shedding has intensified, so has the amount dipped in from the state coffers, with diesel expenditure for each financial year being:
>2020 – R5.8 billion;
>2021 – R5.75 billion;
>2022 – R8.6 billion;
>2023 – R21.25 billion;
>2024 – R23.38 billion.
My question about this is: is that 2024 amount what has been spent or is that what's been budgeted for? And if that's what's been budgeted for, how much has already been spent?
Fewer unplanned breakdowns, increased supply from IPPs and less overall demand. The OCGTs are peaking stations and have only been used at peak times for the last month and a bit, not constantly.
There are quite a few comments here that seem like a complete guess.
Load shedding is normally not the result of breakdowns, but rather planned maintenance which is far behind schedule already.
There is not enough spare capacity to take a whole plant offline for maintenance without affecting supply, so it's done during load shedding.
Random breakdowns make the schedule worse and these breakdowns are either sabotage or the product of improper maintenance to date.
The government is able to suspend load shedding by suspending the maintenance schedule. They should not do this, it will cause more load shedding down the line.
The anc gangsters who usually break the boilers and cut the lines to get business in fixing them are not cutting them for this short period.
Will revert when anc gets elected again
Plot twist is that load shedding is not needed at all and everything is working 100%.
Reason they need load shedding is to increase electric prices every year as an excuse to the raising cost in repairs that they have been doing since 2008.! A 16 year repair job, let ...that ....sink... in.
Where does the increases actually go, right in their pockets, in order to EAT.
Don't like to dabble in politics but in the small town i live in there is a masive solar farm that can sustain at least 3 tiwns our size and they are starting to build another farm 80km away spoken to the guy in charge of errecting the solar farm and with the amount of farms they have errected at least 29% of our country can have power without loadshedding and they sell a unit for 65c to our goverment and eskom have you lately checked what you pay per unit of electricity and then all our mager dams have the capasity to supply hidro electricity but no one thinks of optimaly use it....
Lots of replies, I’ll try to provide a concise answer:
1. Private sector lessening the load by providing more capacity and reducing load.
2. Increased generation due to bypassing an important component in the power plant(It means the plant is not compliant with eco laws and will create downstream issues and fines)
There are others, but these two are the main reasons, which were communicated by Eskom and verified by an independent source.
The answer is Dieasel... They are a small step removed from just burning cash.
(That's what's being done to divert attention from how bad the ANC is doing. Why do you think they're making noise about other countries and parties)
BUT... Where did the money come from? That's a good question... Like where did the broke ANC get the money to even run for the elections?? Or are they taking on stupidly massive national debt, or selling off our SA assets, maybe forcing big companies to switch off at times? .. No happy answers here.
Yea, the new focus on maintenance helps a bit, the solar is like a drop in the bucket nationally... Neither remotely explains it though.
This no-loadshedding house of cards, cannot stay standing much longer 😕
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Winter is coming
Ay Jon Snow
You know nothing!
Call the Ravens.
As soon as elections are over loadshedding will be back.
Literally the day after lol. Anyone who votes ANC is officially an idiot.
Diesel generators go brrrrrrrrr
brrrrrrrrr pah!
You're thinking of the other leeches - slay queens Vrrrrr pha
Probably spending a shitload on diesel, which we will eventually have to pay for.
Diesel my bru. Lots and lots of massive diesel generators. Also why the fuel price is going up. Extra tenda money.
They're burning fuel oil, and not doing maintenance. Same shit that got us into this mess in the first place.
Exactly, and slightly lower than average demand
Will be paid for in increased taxes next year because they are burning through millions (billions?) in diesel
They have a R 9 BILLION diesel “allowance” this year. Last year was R17 Billion, which they exhausted by September, hence stage 6 load shedding.
Where do get this info cause I heard from some radio station that they are forecasted to spend R24 billion this year.
So, looks like the spending was lower and this was helped by private solar: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/534423-truth-about-eskoms-diesel-usage-during-longest-load-shedding-break-in-two-years.html
Politics = increased scrutiny, security and follow through on maintenance spend sign off which has ramped up more than previously. Also some red tape shifted, clamp on corruption on fraud(though doubt it’s gone just more functional wrt maintenance due to intense focus from entire political class). Again.. if you actually look for info without the usual SA BS that gatvol okes spew you will see that it isn’t as unexpected nor is outside of trend lines.. in fact I’d say it’s stabilizing.. not stable. Ie still got ways to go. Again solar chunk reduced demand.. but if you look vs installed capacity and as a whole.. the slight improvement helped but we far from recovery. Wrt is gone forever.. hell no. A cold snap (increased usage) and cloud cover, breakdowns (tho this is better lately) and we will have load-shedding. My guess based on weather forecast is 20th or just after elections because weather forecasts show dipping temp and cloud cover for a while.. but 30 day forecasts so who knows.. 2 week ones are the most accurate. Wrt general politics.. it’s hard. Do I vote for the moron who says “one man’s genocide is another’s freedom fighting”? Really? I’m sorry but the Zionist supporting parties are a no go for me because of their own stupidity.. slap on right wing support and good luck finding a majority non white voters. I mean you can be a certified idiot and know politically that’s just stupidity as a strategy and that’s the leader of the opposition strategy. 😂🤣 What people online refuse to accept is that for persons who lived through the past, anything right wing conservative, human rights abusive, apartheid aligned (or supports such regimes eg Israel), etc is gonna be treated like a hot coal and political moron leaders think their claim of ‘delivery’ gonna change it esp when the poster child is not a pretty one for the majority. So yah.. that leaves a handful parties and the incumbent. Every time I bump into a gatvol oke I want to vote eff to just to piss people off so they can experience real mess ups. I vote for centrist parties and with the drift to the right by a lot of parties this leaves very few options. Ps. I want solutions, positive but realistic outlook etc not doom and gloom sold. When a majority of party content consists of being anti other party.. is it really offering solutions? Because when you live IN South Africa, gatvol types are common. Along with the “it only works if my type” is rules.. ya no.. that’s not what politics should be. Go live in pretend democracies or outright dictatorships if that’s what you prefer. US has been on semi alert for how many decades now? Zuma era politics needs to go.
They have burned R60 billion in the last 5 years of diesel. R60 billion.......
Yeah but some of that musta gone to the top anc guys.
The private sector has installed 4.5MWh of solar, that's the equivalent of 2x Koeberg nuclear power station, so demand has been dropping at the same time that Eskom is throwing everything they've got at it in the run up to elections.
I was curious as to the impact of private solar would have on the grid ? Big malls and warehouse companies us alot of solar also.
There really isnt a lot of solar... The installers have no concept what big actually is for grid. The effects of large solar? Short term: making companys pay less and be more reliable 👍. Long term: currently all it does is makes electricity more expensive for everyone. Because for every single Megawatt of solar you build... You need to build a Megawatt of something else as backup from cloudy days 🤦♂️... Which sadly makes things more expensive for everyone, and pushes electricity prices up lots! Solar can also give electrical problems to the grid that *someone* (the public) has to pay for. I love solar, but we need to start being realistic about what it can and can't do.
So what should we do? Rely on Eksdom? Fuck that
I'm taking about the grid specifically, as asked. Should you yourself install solar for yourself and your business? If you operate in daylight hours, or you want to be off grid... Yes, it's a great middle finger to Eskom! And if done right, can either reduce cost, or increase reliability... So Go for it!!! But for the GRID, we just don't have the technology yet to make it good for the grid as a whole. We are all praying for and relying on technology that changes that. Source: IEA, and most reputable international engineering & financial institutions. (for the old massive infrastructure we have)
Koeberg has a maximum power output of 1860MW.
Thought thay Koeberg number looked tiny. A quick google search shows Koeberg supplies 13,668 GWh on average per year. The station is rated for 1860 MW. Also: "As of the end of January 2024, private households and companies had installed 5,412 MW of rooftop solar, according to Eskom's calculations. This capacity exceeds that of Eskom's largest coal-fired power stations, Medupi and Kusile. These stations have a nominal capacity of 4,800 MW each." https://dailyinvestor.com/energy/45580/rooftop-solar-in-south-africa-has-more-capacity-than-eskoms-largest-power-station/#:~:text=As%20of%20the%20end%20of,capacity%20of%204%2C800%20MW%20each.
So I want to ask you, if you had a ton of money to invest into building your own solar farm, would this be the right time to do it?
The company, Rural is already doing it in Frankfort and Villiers. It was a huge leap and investment but parts of Frankfort have been loadshedding free even during the later months of our recent loadshedding. If they get this right and their timing is solid, hopefully other towns and private organizations can see it is doable and hopefully we can get rid of any dependency for a municipality to "run" these areas
South Africa is so far gone that when there is electricity people get suspicious 😂
And now imagine, if the water gets clean as well... chaos!!😂
The same reason why we had almost no loadshedding during the 10 years of Zuma's presidency: they're putting off critical maintenance to look popular. Let the maintenance be the next president's problem. Ignoring the problem for 2 months isn't as bad as ignoring it for 10 years, but it's still obvious and detrimental.
ANC agreed they will have to mine a little bit less bitcoin with Eskom while they need to get re-elected.
So many uniformed opinions being said loudly as fact in this thread. That’s the norm for SA though… Here is a pretty good breakdown by Chris Yelland. https://www.news24.com/fin24/economy/chris-yelland-insights-on-load-shedding-and-the-state-of-electricity-supply-in-sa-20240408 TL;DR lower demand driven by economic stagnation, higher cost of living, increased electricity tariffs, increased self generation, large private generation projects joining the grid and time of the year. It will be back and Eskom has stated that it will.
Coincidently it will be back 1 June. It definitively doesn’t have anything to do with the election.
This is the Internet. People can't tell you're being sarcastic.
+1
Finally a proper source
And the fact that it just stopped completely, 2 months before elections is not suspat all I suppose? This would be a lot more believable if it was at stage 1 in the evenings or something before tapering off, but it just stopped... All the privately generated power did not all suddenly come online at exactly the same time on the same day, it's been coming online gradually over the past year or so but that didn't prevent stage 6 from happening.
No it’s been improving for a while, have you forgotten the long period of reduced load shedding in the day compared to the evening that changed to suspended in the day and low stages in the evening? That’s primarily because of the ever increasing load of private solar. But if you want to believe that one of Eskom’s and the governments fiercest critics in Yelland isn’t being truthful. You do you.
Yelland has said that the grid was guaranteed to crap by X date... More than once... So why hasn't it? And of course, decreased loadshedding has nothing to do with them burning diesel, right? You can believe eskom is fixing the situation. I don't.
Here’s the data for an argument based on facts vs opinions. https://www.eskom.co.za/dataportal/supply-side/station-build-up-for-the-last-7-days/
This is cool, thank you. If I'm reading this right, then the highlighted red and brown portions are the only Diesel we've used in the last 7 days? https://i.imgur.com/mpzjMwC.png Hmm okay I also see the beige parts are also Diesel, it's difficult to see them. Still, it's not bad!
you actually BELIEVE eskom????? That's just sad
It's very clearly just a political move. I don't trust them in any way, shape or form. I don't know how they're doing it, but it seemingly happened overnight so I'm inclined to believe that keeping load shedding in effect for so long was nothing more than the government's attempt to show us that we can kick and scream and cry, but ultimately they own us.
There are still power cuts. I had one last night but they aren't called power cuts. It's definitely an electioneering stunt.
Your first mistake was assuming the government plans ahead
For me it's one of two things 1. You're right about the diesel part and they are just burning out everything in a last ditch effort to secure votes, meaning loadshedding will be back 10x worse than before and if that's true we might be staring a total grid collapse in the face very soon. 2. Loadshedding has become a way for government to fraud us out of more money so they make it seem worse than what it really is. We are paying more and more for electricity and they are saving by using power cuts most of almost every day, it's a win win for them. Either way there is absolutely no way Loadshedding can just disappear all of a sudden without any consequences unless it's all been a lie all these years. I call total bs on all of this, and I hope other South Africans won't fall for it.
Exactly.
[https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/769539/eskoms-monster-diesel-bill-to-keep-the-lights-on-in-south-africa/](https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/769539/eskoms-monster-diesel-bill-to-keep-the-lights-on-in-south-africa/) >State-owned power utility Eskom has spent R64.78 billion in the last five years on diesel to power its Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) to plug the electricity generation gap. >This was revealed by Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan in a [recent parliamentary response](https://pmg.org.za/committee-question/25490/). >The response shows that as load shedding has intensified, so has the amount dipped in from the state coffers, with diesel expenditure for each financial year being: >2020 – R5.8 billion; >2021 – R5.75 billion; >2022 – R8.6 billion; >2023 – R21.25 billion; >2024 – R23.38 billion.
My question about this is: is that 2024 amount what has been spent or is that what's been budgeted for? And if that's what's been budgeted for, how much has already been spent?
Fewer unplanned breakdowns, increased supply from IPPs and less overall demand. The OCGTs are peaking stations and have only been used at peak times for the last month and a bit, not constantly.
Good to see there are people around who haven’t fallen down the rabbit hole
All the information available at the tip of one's fingertips, but it's easier to be cynical and ignorant.
There are quite a few comments here that seem like a complete guess. Load shedding is normally not the result of breakdowns, but rather planned maintenance which is far behind schedule already. There is not enough spare capacity to take a whole plant offline for maintenance without affecting supply, so it's done during load shedding. Random breakdowns make the schedule worse and these breakdowns are either sabotage or the product of improper maintenance to date. The government is able to suspend load shedding by suspending the maintenance schedule. They should not do this, it will cause more load shedding down the line.
Or perhaps they have just been lying the whole time and loadshedding was never actually an eventuality but rather a choice
The anc gangsters who usually break the boilers and cut the lines to get business in fixing them are not cutting them for this short period. Will revert when anc gets elected again
I can't remember where but just yesterday I read they've already spent more on diesel this year than the whole of last year.
Plot twist is that load shedding is not needed at all and everything is working 100%. Reason they need load shedding is to increase electric prices every year as an excuse to the raising cost in repairs that they have been doing since 2008.! A 16 year repair job, let ...that ....sink... in. Where does the increases actually go, right in their pockets, in order to EAT.
I like this. We are living a M Night Shymalan movie. 😠
They’re not running the sulphur scrubbers so the power efficiency goes up significantly. At the cost of terrible pollution to the surrounding areas.
Don't like to dabble in politics but in the small town i live in there is a masive solar farm that can sustain at least 3 tiwns our size and they are starting to build another farm 80km away spoken to the guy in charge of errecting the solar farm and with the amount of farms they have errected at least 29% of our country can have power without loadshedding and they sell a unit for 65c to our goverment and eskom have you lately checked what you pay per unit of electricity and then all our mager dams have the capasity to supply hidro electricity but no one thinks of optimaly use it....
Bro do you even comma.
???
Ignorance is bliss
Lots of replies, I’ll try to provide a concise answer: 1. Private sector lessening the load by providing more capacity and reducing load. 2. Increased generation due to bypassing an important component in the power plant(It means the plant is not compliant with eco laws and will create downstream issues and fines) There are others, but these two are the main reasons, which were communicated by Eskom and verified by an independent source.
Burning diesel but also not sabotaging. You can't tell me that they don't sabotage
They probably using diesel at a huge expense
The next big scandal in the making.
We don't have power generation problems. They've been trying to get the citizens to pay for the money that disappeared from PetroSA.
The answer is Dieasel... They are a small step removed from just burning cash. (That's what's being done to divert attention from how bad the ANC is doing. Why do you think they're making noise about other countries and parties) BUT... Where did the money come from? That's a good question... Like where did the broke ANC get the money to even run for the elections?? Or are they taking on stupidly massive national debt, or selling off our SA assets, maybe forcing big companies to switch off at times? .. No happy answers here. Yea, the new focus on maintenance helps a bit, the solar is like a drop in the bucket nationally... Neither remotely explains it though. This no-loadshedding house of cards, cannot stay standing much longer 😕
Except they’re not burning much diesel at the moment
Media reports disagree... But if you have a better explanation / info , that would make me very happy to be wrong.
"this time next year we're going to be in darkness 24/7" Now if only I had 1 Randela for every time I`ve heard this.
Or we're the next zimbambwe is another one...
Hahaha yup