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I reckon the 6PM to 8:30PM slot is my least favourite load shedding slot.

I either have to eat before 6PM, like some kind of geriatric, or I must wait until my power comes back on. By this time, I will have consumed multiple snacks and all but ruined my appetite.

This is one gripe I don’t think you can dismiss as ‘First World Problems’ and the past week has once again reminded us of how deep the rot runs at Eskom. You know things are bad when you breathe a sigh of relief as you’re downgraded to stage two.

In order to (sometimes) keep the lights on, Eskom has to plough through diesel. The April figures from TimesLIVE are staggering:

…for the past 21 days of April, the new financial year, Eskom has already spent R626m on about 48,5-million litres of fuel to run its open cycle gas turbines — usually reserved to supply additional energy to the national grid during times of peak or emergency demand.

Over the past financial year, Eskom has spent just shy of R7 billion on diesel to run its emergency generation plants.

Speaking yesterday, Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said that while they don’t anticipate load shedding for next week, it is dependent on the stability of the system and rain and other unpredictable factors could play a role.

Let’s get back to the R626 million and 48,5 million litres of diesel numbers and a sense of perspective from MyBroadband:

This volume of diesel is enough to fill the tanks of 1,077,777 Volkswagen Polos or 606,250 Toyota Hilux bakkies…

Eskom’s current levels of diesel usage are not the highest it has reached this year. In early March, the power utility revealed that it was burning 9 million litres a day to run its OCGTs.

Over 20 days that would’ve worked out to 180 million litres — enough to fill 4 million Volkswagen Polos and almost 2.25 million Toyota Hilux bakkies.

At least the power utility scores a discount, paying around R12,91 per litre of diesel based on the R626 million figure.

Remember those days? R500 and you left the petrol station with a full tank. Simpler times.

[sources:timeslive&mybb]