Rolling Blackouts

Re: Rolling Blackouts

Yeah it's pretty dire! Propaganda is also the biggest problem. We are told something is being done about it but see something different. 2 x 4800MW power plants have been under construction for the last 7 years but both are nearly 4 years behind schedule for various reasons. Had they been on schedule we would not be experiencing any rolling blackouts.

Lack of information is a big problem, typically the warning of impending blackouts is given an hour or so before they start.

Anarchy? Well hopefully not as Africans are pretty used to blackouts.

Power police? Well they would be wise to start with all the illegal power connections in the townships (slums). Obviously people who make illegal power connection use whatever they want as they are not paying for the electricity anyway.
I would love to see what the "power police" have to say when I tell them I'm making my own power so "get lost!"

Re: Rolling Blackouts

techntrek wrote: »

What is the explanation for the discrepancy between the installed capacity and their ability to only meet about 70% of it? Undersized (or permanently offline) transmission lines? Plants that are permanently offline? Sounds like they don't need those new plants, just the ability to get the rated capacity from their existing infrastructure.

Even here in the US I feel the same way you do - I'd rather have an offgrid system than grid-tie, no matter the efficiency gains lost by doing it.

Because of sheer bloody incompetence that's how. Have a look at this tip-off someone just shared on my Facebook page:

Duhva Power Station turbine smash.
Sweeping the **** as well as the taxpayer’s money under the carpet!!

Not really intended for the public, BUT, amazing how pics like these can get out even after Eskom put a blanket of secrecy around the whole incident. Eskom like hiding stuff like this?

So I found out what happened at Duhva power station and the busted turbine.
They were doing a test of the turbine overspeed protection system, and in short, the protection did not kick in. Conventional wisdom tells me that there should be a better way to test a protection system than to try and destroy the turbine and see if it feels like protecting itself, but that’s basically what they did.
The turbine has a governor valve which controls the amount of steam coming into the turbine In order to keep it running at the right speed (3000 rpm for our grid frequency) and then it has a main isolation valve to shut the steam off completely. The protections systems (of which there are 3 independent systems, and a dude with his finger on the emergency button) are supposed to close this main isolation valve in a fraction of a second when the turbine overspeeds.
So they get ready for the test, they dump a helluva lot of steam onto the turbine, speed starts going crazy, it went from 3000 RPM to 4500 RMP in ten seconds (they are generally only designed for 10 to 15% overspeed, all three protection systems should have kicked in by the time you get to 110%). Anyway, I don’t know why, but all three systems failed, and the dude with his finger on the manual trip button wasn’t at his post. So the result was a big bang, some fire and a lot of steam going where it shouldn’t go.
Scary thing is Duvha has a shared turbine hall. All six units are placed in one long straight stripe, with no missile shield between them. And if you look at the third pic you can see how big that shaft is, if that landed on another turbine it would have destroyed that too. They are very lucky they didn’t lose the entire station.
So anyway, what gets reported in the news? “Unforeseen maintenance” at one of the units at Duvha requires it to remain shut down for 18 months. understatement of the century in my book. But you shut off the containment ventilation system at Koeberg for one hour and a radiation alarm goes off, then it’s a front page news national crisis. I give up.