Load shedding

[Stefan]

Ok guys. I want to share some things with you guys. If anyone is planning to come to SA for 2010 bring along some candles because you are going to be without power. You will be having power at the stadiums but rest is looking very bad.

For this week our locally energy provider Crapkom(real name eskom) has started applying load shedding which is were they just shut down your power without any proper warning between 2-6 hours. They aren't just doing this at private residences either it's being down to hospitals,business's and shopping centres.

Basically they didn't plan for economic growth and no they can't supply enough power and guess what's worse we don't have enough power for our own needs but they are exporting power to Zimbabwe,Mozambique and Namibia and they don't have to pay for that.

They were warned 10 years ago that they need more power stations because economic growth would increase but they just ignored it.

Anybody else experiencing such incompetence were you are??

So when I am not alone don't blame me. This thing is getting on my nerves if this happens during an Inter game I better not see a crapkom employee for a day then else I might experience inter rage.

[kylan05]

Oh wow…I’m always wondering what’s life like in South Africa? I mean, are the big cities just like any other big cities in developing countries? Pretty modern, but not exactly quite high-tech yet like Tokyo/NYC…I suppose? And what about the small town/rural/villages, do electricity & gas have reached all areas??

Geezz…ya…I can’t imagine if that really happens. Imagine u’re watching Inter half-way through the game, maybe we’re on counter attack, then suddenly *click* power is out. Ggrrr… It’s actually worse than having the power out while u’re in the shower which I think, so far, is the worst out-of-power situation u can have. But u’re right, I think I’ll be more pissed if I’m out of power when I’m watching Inter game.

[Handoyo]

Wow, that's way extreme. I just read in Singapore that offices here makes it a policy for air-cons to be set no lower than 22 degree Celsius (Or was it 24?). I believe they also have a similar policy in Japan.

But Stef, do you really think that the situation would be that bad during the World Cup? I mean, Beijing is trying extremely hard to clean their image in preparation for the Olympic Games later this year because they do not want to scare the tourists away. I would predict that South Africa would do something similar too. They may only start doing so once it's closer to the event though, not now.

[Hasan]

Hehee, Bosnia have enough power to export it but still we have most expensive power in Europe.

We export cheaper than we sell it in our own house.

P.S:

This morning when I woke up I tried to make my morning coffee and there was no watter or electricity... They always work something with that cables but it's usually on morning and no longer from hour or two so there is no chance for me to stay without electricity when Inter playing.

[Kato]

nobody uses solar power?

where i live in greece i'd say a half of things is powered on solar power to save on electricity.

and wow this seems extreme, never heard of such a thing until now

[Stefan]

Wow, that's way extreme. I just read in Singapore that offices here makes it a policy for air-cons to be set no lower than 22 degree Celsius (Or was it 24?). I believe they also have a similar policy in Japan.

But Stef, do you really think that the situation would be that bad during the World Cup? I mean, Beijing is trying extremely hard to clean their image in preparation for the Olympic Games later this year because they do not want to scare the tourists away. I would predict that South Africa would do something similar too. They may only start doing so once it's closer to the event though, not now.

Handoyo the government and Eskom will try to fool people with propaganda. The fact is they will supply power at the stadiums but lets just say that power will not be on everywhere in the country so some people won't be seeing the world cup even if it's held in their own country.

So what will happen is you can go to the stadium and watch the game but you will probably not have power at the pub.

My uncle works at Eskom and told us that this situation will not get better till 2013/2014 when they have finished building new generators.

@Kylan: Big cites are relatively modern but there's no high tech and public transport is virtually no existent. There's no subway here. We have minibus taxis but unless you like to trust guys who don't care about the rules of the road I wouldn't recommended using them.

We electricity in most of the small towns except someone of the shack town's. The Shack towns are the place were the old apartheid government settled the other races. The bigger shack towns have electricity but the smaller ones don't.

So now everyone here's is looking at getting generators for essential stuff like cooking,computers,tv's and lights.

And yeah the hospitals can't do any operations but emergency during these outages because they aren't allowed to start routine operations on generator power.

[Stefan]

Before I forget guys the Eskom Ceo got a bonus for performance this year of R8million. In any other country this guy would have been fired for incompetence but he gets 8 million.

[Suneet]

I have 4 words for you:

COME LIVE IN INDIA.

[shahz_nerazzurri]

Stefan, just thank god that you dont live in Pakistan. During summer, we have 4 hours of scheduled load shedding every day.
When I used to live there, this happened to me so many times, you are watching a CL game, and bam, bye bye electricity.

I swear, just go to Karachi for a week, and when you return to S.Africa, you will kissing each and every part of the ground over there.

[Stefan]

Shaz that's pretty what is happening here. It's suppose to be scheduled but since they don't keep to their schedule it doesn't really matter. Also certain individuals and big business gets preferential treatment and don't get shutdown and that's really upsetting the normal people.

Earlier this week it was suppose to be no longer than 2 hours a day but it's now increased since yesterday to 6 hours.

[Suneet]

Trust me like a gazillion people in the over-populated countries, you will get used to it.

Do you guys have generators?

[Stefan]

Trust me like a gazillion people in the over-populated countries, you will get used to it.

Do you guys have generators?

Nope but everybody is busy buying them now.

But that's the problem we aren't over populated and never ever had a power problem. This is caused by incompetence and not managing the power supply properly. Bad maintenance and not planning for the future.

I really need to get out of here.

[Suneet]

Nope but everybody is busy buying them now.

But that's the problem we aren't over populated and never ever had a power problem. This is caused by incompetence and not managing the power supply properly. Bad maintenance and not planning for the future.

I really need to get out of here.

Spot on. They havent been pro-active. Dude come live in Dubai then. The only blackout I've seen in my entire life was because of some big fire and the whole city was electrically cut off. But they fixed it the same day. Forza Sheikh Mohammed.

[Stefan]

Spot on. They havent been pro-active. Dude come live in Dubai then. The only blackout I've seen in my entire life was because of some big fire and the whole city was electrically cut off. But they fixed it the same day. Forza Sheikh Mohammed.

Dubai gets too hot in the summer and you can't ever get permanent residence unless you were born there as far as I know. But if I don't find anything in europe/uk then Dubai is definitely a great option.

[Suneet]

Dubai gets too hot in the summer and you can't ever get permanent residence unless you were born there as far as I know. But if I don't find anything in europe/uk then Dubai is definitely a great option.

Who told you that? There are a lot of freehold residences in Dubai, PM/MSN me I wil tell you all about it.

Its hot in the summer but now even the bus stops are air-conditioned, we are going to have our very own metro(rail) system in August.

But you need money to stay in this city, you can live here happily ever after if you have a high paying job/source of income. The only problem here is the traffic during rush hour, its like heaven otherwise, you get everything.

And there are a lot of South Africans here if you miss them.

[Stefan]

Who told you that? There are a lot of freehold residences in Dubai, PM/MSN me I wil tell you all about it.

Its hot in the summer but now even the bus stops are air-conditioned, we are going to have our very own metro(rail) system in August.

But you need money to stay in this city, you can live here happily ever after if you have a high paying job/source of income. The only problem here is the traffic during rush hour, its like heaven otherwise, you get everything.

And there are a lot of South Africans here if you miss them.

My uncle who lives in Abu Dhabi told me you never get permanent citizenship unless you were born there. He told me in the Emirates you can always have your visa withdrawn and deported.

But pm me the details on the on that free residence.

[Pravesh]

NEPAL, the second richest country in water resources after Brazil BUT as we are a poor country, haven't got rich European neighbouring countries who would have bought our electricity for good prices, pathetic administration, political problem which has always been there since I don't know when, etc etc

Ooops, I forgot to tell you the very most important thing !! We have got this so called load shedding for more than 7 hours per day - DAILY (and sometimes more than that).



Now, I have been living in Beijing, China since more than 5 years.

[Handoyo]

When I first saw this thread title again, I thought someone was gonna discuss some diet tactics.

[Ziyad]

When I first saw this thread title again, I thought someone was gonna discuss some diet tactics.

Me too i swear Maybe we should open such a topic.. God knows i need it.

[shahz_nerazzurri]

Talked to me mum, said that in Karachi, there is like 5 hours of load shedding every day. Also funny, considering that we live in richer area of the city, which has comparatively lesser load shedding, than most poorer areas. In poorer areas, they dont have electricity for 7-8 hours these days.
And its not even summer. During summer its the worst.

Oh, how glad am I, not to be going back home this summer.