After we experienced a rather debilitating 3-day power failure in February 2006, AfriClad took some advice from the experts who predicted problems for the next 8-10 years, and decided to invest in a generator. The 200 kVA John Deere unit was installed at a cost of R 250 000 a month later, but was not called on to work much during its first year after installation. Our technical staff faithfully started the machine up every 2 weeks to ensure that it remained ready to kick in when needed, however.
At the start of the 2007 summer things started to go pear shaped at Eskom, the South African national electricity utility. With the highest loadings traditionally occurring in winter, load shedding is expected during the cold months. But because of the high demand in winter, Eskom schedules maintenance for the summer months. So the South African grid is rather thinly stretched at any time of the year at the moment. When something does go wrong (as Murphy dictates that it will), load shedding is a fact of life.
What you don't want is interrupted production in the run-up to Christmas, when every customer is screaming for his job to be completed before the end of the year. Thanks to our trusty John Deere, power failures is one excuse we don't have!
