Stats guru Krzysztof Wojciechowicz draws on 70 year old historical data for suggestions that Eskom might consider. During the latter stages of World War Two, Nazi Germany managed to keep its power generation virtually constant despite massive bombing sorties by Allied aircraft. How they achieved this has lessons, surely, for the modern day electricity war being waged by Eskom. – AH
By Krzysztof Wojciechowicz*
I think enough was written about Eskom, but the prospects of dark years ahead make this topic even more frightening – as the experts predict: “Electricity expert, Doug Kuni said that all South Africans can do now about the current electricity situation is to buy candles and a generator. “You are going to need it for the next five to ten years,” he said.
As a child in wartime occupied Poland I still remember so called ‘outages’. Now in South Africa, after some 70 years, the memory calls back.
It would be interesting to compare the conditions under which those blackouts happened.
“In [occupied] France, the electricity system was seriously damaged, in particular in the summer of 1943, when an upsurge of Resistance actions targeting electrical installations coincided with massive aerial bombardments by the Allies. The situation worsened with the Allied invasion of Normandy. By August 1944 the French high-voltage network was nearly paralyzed.”
Electricity production statistics (in GWh):
1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
France 20,228 18,833 18,588 17,857 18,228 14,213 18,074
“….Almost immediately after the landing at Normandy, the engineering division of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force surveyed existing needs and started repair work. These actions resulted in quite a substantial increase in electricity production in France in 1945.”
Indeed, the infrastructure, which by August 1944 was ‘nearly paralyzed’, already in the end of 1944 produced 14,213 GWh, and in the next year it nearly achieved the pre-war level of 18,073 GWh.
During the war, in the attack by Allied air power, almost 2,700,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Germany. Austria, which then was a part of Germany was also a target of bombardments.
And here there are statistics:
Electricity production statistics (in GWh):
1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945
Austria 3,580 3,990 4,429 4,731 5,640 5,877 3,628
Germany 34,053 39,800 45,200 11,277
(the 1945 figure refers to West Germany only, after most of industrial infrastructure was removed by Allies as war reparations).
Under the most adverse conditions, with day and night bombardments, the Germans managed to keep their economy going, repairing all the severe damages within days or weeks. And – constantly increasing their industrial output.
What makes us different from Germans? In 2007 we already knew that our electricity infrastructure needs urgent overhaul. And 7 years later the same story repeats. Maybe electricity receives the same treatment as the potholes in our streets. When after a few years the street becomes impassable, the authorities fill the holes with some stuff and in a few months the holes reappear even bigger then before.
Now Eskom has serious problems with their silos. Headlines: Dramatic footage of Eskom’s silo collapse!.
Compare it with the fate of one of the German plants during the war:
“The story of Leuna is illustrative. Leuna was the largest of the synthetic plants…. Leuna was hit on May 12 and put out of production. However, investigation of plant records and interrogation of Leuna’s officials established that a force of several thousand men had it in partial operation in about 10 days.
“It was again hit on May 28 but resumed partial production on June 3 and reached 75 percent of capacity in early July. It was hit again on July 7 and again shut down but production started 2 days later and reached 53 percent of capacity on July 19.
“An attack on July 20 shut the plant down again but only for three days; by July 27 production was back to 35 percent of capacity. Attacks on July 28 and 29 closed the plant and further attacks on August 24, September 11, September 13, September 28 and October 7 kept it closed down.
“However, Leuna got started again on October 14 and although production was interrupted by a small raid on November 2, it reached 28 percent of capacity by November 20.
To win the battle with Leuna a total of 6,552 bomber sorties were flown against the plant, 18,328 tons of bombs were dropped and an entire year was required.”
The Eskoms silos don’t need even one kilo bomb to disintegrate. We have good relations with Germany. Why wouldn’t Eskom think of sending its experts to Germany? Surely there are there old people who know how to maintain plants under the most unfavourable conditions?
* Statistics guru Krzysztof Wojciechowicz retired as Director Statistical Analysis at the DTI. You can reach him at [email protected]. His website address is http://www.econostatistics.co.za/index.html
