We were without power for most of the weekend – so I haven’t blogged since Friday. Allow me here some load shedding complaining. We had load shedding early on Saturday morning and imagine our initial surprise, and then disappointment when the power did not come back on as it should have at the end of the period.
The load shedding created an electrical fault somewhere in the system feeding our neighbourhood which, like most places in South Africa, suffer from lack of regular maintenance. It took the municipality the whole day to find and fix the fault. The repair lasted a mere 3 or 4 hours. At 23h45 the lights went off again. I double-checked the load shedding schedule and no, we weren’t due for more until the next afternoon.
In the morning our councillor sent a message confirming another fault – this one more widespread: a few neighbourhoods were affected. As evening rolled in, I began getting rather annoyed with the whole situation. Monday being a working day I began to worry about how I was going to work. Thankfully I didn’t have training today, but I did have a whole lot of meetings.
Our neighbourhood came back on in the evening. We were the second last area to come online. The final area came online this morning only. It must’ve been a complex fault.
We actually have inverters and deep-cycle batteries, but our system is only as good as the battery capacity that we have. So we had to prioritise – keeping the deep freezer with food going, or work. So I chose the food. We don’t yet have a method to charge the batteries without Eskom power. That is the next iteration of the system – a generator or solar cells to charge the batteries.
I feel grateful that the food didn’t spoil and I was able to work today.
I will be coming by to visit your coffee shares this week and I’ll look forward to participating again next week.
PS: I took a break from typing this post to water my veggie garden. One thing led to another and before I knew it I was kneeling on the ground, hands in the soil removing the weeds. The patch is beautifully weeded and the soil turned, ready for the next batch of veggie planting.
It is almost 8 pm here in South Africa, and it’s time for shower and dinner. Have an amazing week! Keep safe and healthy.
Regina
Loadshedding sucks!!!
I would say opt for high capacity solar panels than getting a generator because number one it’s noisy well unless you get the expensive super silent brand but as you already have deep cycle batteries might as well complete the set and not worry about additional costs like fuel
Maybe I’m no longer a fan of generators because this side getting fuel is a mission not to mention current lockdown restrictions… And we get really long loadshedding schedules running a generator 8hours a day every day… Yeah i don’t think they designed like that at least the small ones not those industrial behemoths
~B
When my sister lived in southern Angola they had a huge generator they ran the whole day, but the company my brother-in-law worked for paid for that as expats. The price of generators goes up in relation to the demand.
Clean power is better, yeah the high capacity solar is the best way to go, especially we are lucky to have sun most of the year.
I have to add because I saw him reply to another one of your posts is it’s ~B in Zim that I follow and he’s shared so much about it, I’ve learned a lot – so sorry you all have that load shedding stuff to deal with….
Is B me?
Also here’s a “fun” fact… Our country imports electricity from South Africa as our own power stations which have been around since forever cannot meet the demand (and constantly break down trying to cope with demand)
When South Africa is experiencing loadshedding or also means they won’t have any extra electricity to export which means we also experience increased loadshedding so our electricity fates are somewhat joined.
~B
That’s true. And I don’t know when the electricity issue will be fixed if at all in the next decade or so. The 2 new power stations have design flaws and the Medupi conveyor belt keeps breaking.
B is you. Or is it ~B? Or Beaton?
Haha, yup! So sorry I don’t shout out very well! That’s a very interesting fact, so you are all rather joined together…. They need to fix up those power stations!
Haha ; yes they do and the 2 that are in progress of construction have design flaws according to the builders
So sorry to hear about the power outages. I follow another blogger in Zimbabwe and he has the same issues. Sounds very frustrating! But am happy the power finally came back on for you eventually!
Many people in both our countries have generators and the like. My dream is to go completely off-the-grid.