Why would Eskom not be doing its level best to minimize load-shedding? When and for how long units need to be offline, both on a planned and unplanned basis is a matter of the best judgment. Why would groups and individuals who are capable of no more than speculation, be in a better position to make these judgment calls than the operator?
that assumes that they do have competent operators, their past performance doesn't suggest so, neither do the opinion of those who work with Eskom in O&M contracting.
There is unfortunately a lot of politics involved with Eskom and they systematically eroded their competent people over the years.
Admittedly Eskom is a special case, but the general theme is no different from pundits (largely academic) in many jurisdictions around the world, all of whom assume that they understand the operations better than those who are operating these large machines called “grids”. From an empirical perspective, many of the pundits are being proven wrong, both in terms of operations and of markets and pricing. Is Eskom’s incompetence entirely the problem or is it also that the non-operating “experts” are overly optimistic about what is possible, particularly given the uncertainty around grid operations under increasing renewables penetration? I realize SA has to face the renewables uncertainty as well as that of Eskom itself, but these critiques just seem so much like “more of the same”. Is SA/Eskom really that different?
RE penetration in SA is not that high yet to make that much of a dent, but it is a distraction to fix the coal fleet (my personal view),
The big issue though is that Eskom did fire a lot of their experienced staff when the government forced affirmative action legislation and it eroded lots of operational skills. There is still good residual skills left, but largely the failure has been systemic.
What the "experts" fail to see though is that you cannot just walk away from a dying utility, as it will drag down the fiscus with it, and nobody wants to "fix the coal", because it's not fashionable. That in my view is the reality that is staring SA, soon in the face.
lots to discuss, but the above information I put are actually from o&m contractors on the ground.
Why would Eskom not be doing its level best to minimize load-shedding? When and for how long units need to be offline, both on a planned and unplanned basis is a matter of the best judgment. Why would groups and individuals who are capable of no more than speculation, be in a better position to make these judgment calls than the operator?
that assumes that they do have competent operators, their past performance doesn't suggest so, neither do the opinion of those who work with Eskom in O&M contracting.
There is unfortunately a lot of politics involved with Eskom and they systematically eroded their competent people over the years.
Admittedly Eskom is a special case, but the general theme is no different from pundits (largely academic) in many jurisdictions around the world, all of whom assume that they understand the operations better than those who are operating these large machines called “grids”. From an empirical perspective, many of the pundits are being proven wrong, both in terms of operations and of markets and pricing. Is Eskom’s incompetence entirely the problem or is it also that the non-operating “experts” are overly optimistic about what is possible, particularly given the uncertainty around grid operations under increasing renewables penetration? I realize SA has to face the renewables uncertainty as well as that of Eskom itself, but these critiques just seem so much like “more of the same”. Is SA/Eskom really that different?
RE penetration in SA is not that high yet to make that much of a dent, but it is a distraction to fix the coal fleet (my personal view),
The big issue though is that Eskom did fire a lot of their experienced staff when the government forced affirmative action legislation and it eroded lots of operational skills. There is still good residual skills left, but largely the failure has been systemic.
What the "experts" fail to see though is that you cannot just walk away from a dying utility, as it will drag down the fiscus with it, and nobody wants to "fix the coal", because it's not fashionable. That in my view is the reality that is staring SA, soon in the face.
lots to discuss, but the above information I put are actually from o&m contractors on the ground.
Or, put another way, should SA turn its grid operations over to the academics and pundits?
Put it this way - I’d sooner have Eskom engineers and operations staff making the decisions than Mark Swilling…
we are in agreement. That would be a disaster.