We will read reports that we have not experienced load shedding for over 300 days, but they will not mention that over the last 300 days there has been 91 000 outages across the country. Do the maths that is an average of 300 outages per day which is "shockingly" bad. A bit of humor does not hurt when the infrastructure around you is collapsing lol. With so much power being out due to faults there is no need for load shedding.
This morning when I got up it was like a normal day except this was a public holiday being Good Friday. We all had some breakfast and coffee and only when I opened the front door mid morning did I notice the sound of generators purring away.
The electricity has been off and on and now permanently off all day with the grid playing up. The main switch off happened at around 15.30 this afternoon but this morning the power must have been on and off intermittently. My solar notified me the power cuts were happening but these days I tend to take very little notice. The only time I am aware is if I hear the generators in the neighbors yards or the traffic lights are off. This is actually quite common and it is either no power or someone has stolen the cables for the umpteenth time.
This is what I find scary. 537 open power faults and 323 are already over 24 hours. This is only from one region and this is happening all over so there are many families and businesses with no power for very long periods. You may think i am exaggerating a little so here are some other reports below.
478 open calls with 165 recorded in the last 24 hours. Logic then tells you 313 of the open calls are older than 24 hours.
This one is even worse with 858 open calls and only when you read the actual report does it state that 699 are over 24 hours old.
The beauty of having a separate power source is you are living a normal boring life with no stress of having to worry do you have enough fuel for the generator or is there enough gas on the barbecue to make some coffee. Those days are long gone and the only worry is do you have enough battery storage to last if this power cut goes for a day or two. We have around about 4 hours which we would have no power between 1am and 5pm when the sun rises and the batteries would then charge up again. This I am hoping will no longer be an issue within the next month once the extra purchases have been made and added to the solar system.
I went to the shops this afternoon who were still open even though they were operating on temporary power. The fridges were off and the bakery section was not producing any bread rolls so you took what was available and managed to grab the last 9 hot dog rolls. I managed to grab the last few as the very next person wanted what I had and he gave me a disappointed look and felt I needed to protect them lol.
The grandkids and my daughter were coming over so they could eat and take a shower as their suburb where they live was also down. You start to soon realise that the entire Southern Johannesburg region was down and it is nearly 9pm in the evening and still no power. An added update the power just kicked in and has been out for 6 hours.
For those businesses and properties with no power this would suck especially being a public holiday as entertainment plans no doubt would have to be changed. For many families the expense of spending another R200 on fuel for the generator will mean sacrifices later in the month as the majority of households live in debt and that is the reality of todays economy. This is not the poor households, but the so called middle class as I noticed our neighbor only ran the generator for a few hours and gave up. If you are camping this is fine, but not when you are living at home and tonight many will be using candles which is rather sad.
I took a snapshot of my inverter history for the last week or so and it is quite scary as there is an event each day even if it is only for a few minutes. This is most likely a power surge and the inverter kicks in blocking the grid before the surge hits the property and is a great feature. You then realise why most electrical appliances do not last that long and are under constant threat from surges which happen daily. We used to go through a washing machine and dishwasher every other year until we started renting all of our appliances which worked out far cheaper instead of replacing them every 2 years.
The hope is the power will come back on later this evening and stay on for the remainder of the long weekend so at least those that are not on solar can at least have some sense of normality. The quality of living we are experiencing has been worth the investment and you only realise how life changing this is only when you have it.