I know someone who knows someone who works at Eskom and was given a heads up that once the World Cup ends, there’s a really great chance of us all experiencing some power failures, due to the huge amount of electricity that the World Cup has required.
This is not the first time that this has been predicted, but when it comes from a source that I trust, I definitely take it more seriously than a random rumour circulating the Internet.
Because of this, I suggest that everyone takes note of several things:
- Make sure your mobiles are charged at all times
- Ensure that you have petrol in your car
- Keep some cash on you
- Keep a pack of matches or a lighter in a safe place
- Add some candles and possibly a torch to this safe place
- Make sure you know how to manually override any automatic security gates
If you’re prepared, these power failures are not that bad, so take the time to get organised, it’ll pay off in the long run!
If you have a tip, please feel free to leave it here :)
Also make sure your pcs are on UPS, sata hard drives are very temperamental when it comes to power cuts, also faster drives are just that because of larger caching, killing the power see lots of data not make it back to the platter.
And yes expect more black outs while they are avoidable, the next round of pushes to get higher tariffs for power, will see an Enron style set of deliberate black outs used as leverage.
It doesn’t really make sense to me that there will be a bigger risk of blackouts after the world cup. Electricity gets used as it gets generated. It doesn’t get stored anywhere in the grid. The electricity required by the world cup events was generated at the time it was needed. I haven’t heard of any blackouts during the world cup which must have meant that eskom was able generate enough electricity. Once the world cup is over there will be less demand for electricity. Therefore if anything I’d expect there to be fewer electricity problems after the world cup.
Err. Does Eskom have a big bunch of batteries that have gone flat by supplying power for the SWC? Now we have blackouts while they recharge? LOL
No, electricity is generated and used at the same time. Just because a lot was used during the SWC does not have any effect on what will be available to us now.
A battery charger or solar charger will keep your gadgets charged when there is no power. They really are a lifesaver!
@Gavin – Absolutely, I actually wrote another blog post last night about some pure sinewave inverters :)
Hi Chris.
I forwarded this article to a radio journalist (so the first two paragraphs were read live on Cape Talk this morning). They had Andrew Etzinger from Eskom speak on their behalf and they said that there were no plans to institute rolling blackouts and that while they would be doing maintenance in September (which increases rolling blackout risk) they thought that they had enough spare capacity for it to be less of a risk this year.
So I would be a lot more careful about the information you get from this source of yours. :)
Eskom never tell the real story. And if they did say the real story that there would be blackouts, the country would be running around buying backup batteries all over again.