Quote:
Originally Posted by AndrewJ
Irrespective of current blackouts, which ( appears ) to be due to businesses treating the electricity supply like a fish market, i have to agree the "gold plating" spree was totally wasteful in many cases and done in a very very inefficient manner.
I only have to look at the pole in front of my house to be reminded of it.
Andrew
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My point is that before "Gold plating" of the networks, load shedding was a common occurrence in hot weather. Even I can recall it just about every summer.
Ignoring yesterdays load shedding in SA which appears to be failure of the "Market" process to provide enough generation (Fancy that, the profit motive not providing a good social outcome) Avoiding load shedding in extreme weather requires the network to be built to withstand consequently extreme load, rather than average high load days. That costs money and then people complain about gold plating.
We as a community demand that the electricity network withstand the load of just about every household in the country getting home and turning the aircon on in 45 degree heat (And with airconditioners so large that they would have made a smallish office envious a decade or so back) but we scream blue bloody murder at the cost implicit in the network being built to cater to those couple of days of extreme demand.
"Gold plated" versus "Load shedding", we can't have it both ways.