Will the power go off today

**PCfanatic** · 11-06-2018, 06:39

I did not watch any tv yesterday, so I might have missed something. There was talk off that the power will be turned off because there will be a zero increase in salaries for Eskom employees. Any new news on this?

**noost** · 11-06-2018, 06:52

http://num.org.za/News-Reports-Speec...total-shutdown

That is all the info there is at the moment.

I cannot find an exact date though.

**Paladin** · 11-06-2018, 07:42

Arrived at work today (power station near Kriel) and it is business as usual. Protection services not even on alert, gates manned as normal. Usually when industrial action is on the cards the main gates remain closed and protection services have extra man and firepower at the gates. That will indicate to me that the NUM action is not anticipated for today.

**noost** · 11-06-2018, 07:44

Originally Posted by Paladin

Arrived at work today (power station near Kriel) and it is business as usual. Protection services not even on alert, gates manned as normal. Usually when industrial action is on the cards the main gates remain closed and protection services have extra man and firepower at the gates. That will indicate to me that the NUM action is not anticipated for today.

Hi Paladin,

If you suspect something is coming, will you give us a heads-up?

**Paladin** · 11-06-2018, 07:53

Originally Posted by noost

Hi Paladin,

If you suspect something is coming, will you give us a heads-up?

Roger Wilco. If there is any directive from Eskom management or from my management I will give a heads up.

**PCfanatic** · 11-06-2018, 07:45

Great news, thank you.

**Gleock** · 11-06-2018, 12:40

Pretty sure if they go ahead with this it will amount to treason and union leaders can finally be put in jail.

**Digby** · 11-06-2018, 13:25

Wouldn't a national shut down in supply lead to a full national grid shut down? i.e. like the entire grid tripping in a cascading nature. I seem to recall something along the lines that a full grid shutdown could take weeks, if not months to restore. That scenario, if true/possible would be the stuff of nightmares.

**BBCT** · 11-06-2018, 22:00

Originally Posted by Digby

Wouldn't a national shut down in supply lead to a full national grid shut down? i.e. like the entire grid tripping in a cascading nature. I seem to recall something along the lines that a full grid shutdown could take weeks, if not months to restore. That scenario, if true/possible would be the stuff of nightmares.

Ironically, it's very difficult to start up a power station if you don't have electricity. You are correct in saying that it would take quite a while to start up the whole grid if it was to go down in it's entirety and all stations were to shut down. Such a situation would be called a "black start" and most of our power stations wouldn't be able to do it. One possibility would be to start one of the pumped storage schemes (eg Drakensberg or Palmiet, assuming they had water in their top dam at the time) and dedicate the power generated from that to starting up the base load (coal) stations 1 unit at a time. As one unit starts running, the power from that would be used to start up another unit and so on.......

The open cycle (diesel) stations at Atlantis & Mossel Bay should also be able to do black start & apparently Koeberg too, because it has dedicated offsite emergency power supplies as well as standby diesel generators & multiple other clever tricks. Problem with Koeberg is that it would realistically take 2 weeks or longer to start up, by which time the diesel might have run out. Pumped storage & diesel units could theoretically be started within a few minutes but it could take some time to manipulate all the switchgear to send that power to the coal (base load) stations. Coal powered units could each theoretically be started up in less than a day but successively, not all at the same time.

An interesting prospect and you can be sure that Joe Public wouldn't see much electricity for a few weeks.

I'd be doing my best to turn all the defrosting meat in the deepfreeze into biltong before it goes off!

**Digby** · 12-06-2018, 11:44

Originally Posted by BBCT

An interesting prospect and you can be sure that Joe Public wouldn't see much electricity for a few weeks.

Thanks for the reply, it was very informative. Is there any documented theory in terms of what the situation would look like if in SA we had no electricity for 2 to 3 weeks?

I would imagine the economy would largely come to a standstill. Companies(or many) wouldn't be generating revenues, people wouldn't be getting wages. Would they even be able to draw their wages after a while? Would cell towers still have power and for how long? What about water systems? I have no idea how water gets from A to B to my house, but I assume somewhere through the "purification" process electricity is involved, so would we have water? How long before shops ran out of essentials?

I suppose the most important question would be "what scenario could lead to a complete shutdown?" Surely a few days strike action would not be enough...would it?