I suppose its to be expected that an emerging country such as South Africa has to face so many challenges on its path forward but the recent power outages which Eskom, the national power utility, calls “load shedding” is actually just plain ridiculous. A while back Eskom implemented a load schedding schedule to reduce the strain on the national power grid as maintenance work needed to be done and there wasn’t enough power to go around. Either the planned summer maintenance was guise or we really are in trouble.
The power outages have been getting worse and worse and according to recent reports it is estimated that up to R2 billion is being lost on a daily basis due to the unexpected power outages. Most businesses would be able to plan around the supposed schedules but when they hit randomly its just not acceptable. As usual some people have injected a little humour.
When will it end? Who knows! But I know that I’m doing my little bit to save on power consumption. I’m switching all my incandescent lighting to the longer lasting and more efficient energy saving globes and keeping lights off at home when not needed. I wonder what difference it would make if companies took the initiative and got rid of CRT monitors in favour of LCD monitors. Possibly government could provide some form of incentive in this regard.
[tags]Eskom,power,electricity,South Africa[/tags]