This map takes the hassle out of load-shedding! Save this as a bookmark, and make sure you plan your day around the potential power-outs…
All this talk of load shedding and nothing seems to be happening? Not anymore, because today Eskom have gone further than the “emergency” they declared last week – they’ve now given actual times!
On Thursday, large parts of the country experienced blackouts. Load shedding occurred after Eskom declared an emergency. The power cuts were due to wet coal stocks, caused by seven days of heavy rain.
Activists from Greenpeace Africa, groundWork and Earthlife Africa JHB, this morning hoisted a banner and chained themselves to the entrance of Megawatt Park, Eskom’s headquarters in Johannesburg.
Having just come out of winter, and with a decreased summer load on the national grid, you would expect that a little relief would be in order from our nation’s energy supplier – not quite. After lukewarm showers, green swimming pools and rooms lit with a single lightbulb, we’ll be finding out this week if we’re in for another increase in the price of electricity.
On the back of numerous electricity price hikes comes the news that Eskom blew more than R36 million on staff parties and team building experiences last year. The parastatal has however come out and defended the expenditure saying fun days are used to commit workers to keeping the lights on.
Eskom’s electricity generating capacity has reached record lows over the last week, with unplanned power outages reaching their highest level for the year on 3 May, and yesterday coming precariously close to that figure again. Considering winter’s only just begun, this is going to cause some major worries across the country.
The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) said yesterday that workers in the coal sector would go on strike following failed wage negotiations. These are the people that have to make sure Eskom has enough coal to keep on providing electricity to the country. Their bosses offered a seven percent increase, while they thought 14% was fairer.
In case the message hasn’t already been made abundantly clear, South Africa needs to embrace new energy sources – and quickly. Eskom can’t foresee our (yes, it affects everyone) power supply problem improving for the next five years.
Eskom said South Africa saved 1800 megawatts over the last six years. Apparently that’s enough energy to power Durban. The energy powerhouse hastened to add that this saving was due to energy efficient lighting. And not just any lights – the lights rolled out by them from 2004 to 2010.
News24 reports that 91 Eskom employees suffered radiation contamination while doing maintenance at the Koeberg nuclear power plant on Monday. During maintenance on Koeberg Unit One, 91 workers tested positive for cobalt 58 as they left the site on September 12, said Eskom spokesperson Karen de Villiers. The workers then had body scans to search […]