This weekend I drove through Port Elizabeth, past a power substation that had exploded (photos were published on this blog). The way we are treating electricity is the same way we treat potholes in the road. We patch up the broken bits and hold thumbs. Meanwhile the traffic moving through these corridors places increasing strain because the traffic (the load) is increasing constantly. What we need to be doing is addressing consumption - demand - and this includes a more disciplined approach to expenditures we cannot afford. We also need to invest heavily in rail.And we need to look at how many people this country can sustain with the resources and technologies we have at our disposal right now.
POWER cuts in several areas of Johannesburg yesterday morning were not due to load shedding, but were caused by too great a strain on distribution equipment as a result of Eskom’s constant blackouts that occurred earlier this year.
A malfunction at City Power’s Kelvin substation caused outages in several areas including Highlands North, Halfway Gardens, Houghton, Dunkeld, Rosebank, Bez Valley, Killarney, Illovo, Atholl and Glenhazel.
An industry analyst said that the main issue was that a large portion of the electricity distribution infrastructure had been damaged by the load shedding earlier this year.
He predicted more power cuts this year because old, faulty equipment is certain to fail under strain.
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clipped from www.thetimes.co.za
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