Thanks 'MyEnergy Monitor' - I now (continuously) know the Eskom National Energy Status, and I can select my suburb(s) and show their "outage" schedules.
Whenever any statuses change (eg. from green to orange), then a popup is displayed to let me know. The app also allows me to configure various options: simple desktop alert or system shutdown.
You can even report an unscheduled power outage!
Installation and configuration is very easy and the region and suburbs are pull-down lists - so finding your area(s) is easy.
For more info, see here: http://www.myenergy.co.za
For screen shots and to download [1.6MB] go here: http://www.myenergy.co.za/download/
Excerpt from the program's detailed help screens:
"
The load shedding schedule for your selected location displays the load shedding time windows when we are in the 'brown' stage (when the grid is under the most strain). Currently, load shedding only takes place when national usage is in Brown, and therefore schedules are only provided for Brown Stages. At the bottom of the schedule, you will see today's day name. The schedules vary based on the day of the week. If you would like to display the schedules for yesterday or tomorrow, click the little calendar buttons to move the day. Displaying tomorrow's schedules will not affect the monitoring that is occurring on today's schedules.
When current national power usage is in brown stage 1 - 3, the schedules will kick in. Your location will then have a high probability of being load -shed during these times. If you have set up actions when adding your location, these actions will run at the set interval before the probable power outage.
Report an unscheduled outage:
If you encounter an unscheduled outage in your area, you can report it using the Report unscheduled outage link.
Complete the details about the outage, and we will use that data to fine tune the load shedding schedule.
When current national power usage is in brown stage 1 - 3, the schedules will kick in. Your location will then have a high probability of being load -shed during these times. If you have set up actions when adding your location, these actions will run at the set interval before the probable power outage.
Report an unscheduled outage:
If you encounter an unscheduled outage in your area, you can report it using the Report unscheduled outage link.
Complete the details about the outage, and we will use that data to fine tune the load shedding schedule.
"
Well done MyEnergy, and thanks a lot! - it's an app that will help me to better understand and cope with the "outage" schedules!
Update on 15Mar2008:
Update on 15Mar2008:
PowerFox is an extension for Firefox 2 that adds a small icon to the browser's status bar indicating the current power status as reported by the PowerAlert site's RSS feed.
Posts
Hey there!
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for the writeup - we're glad you're finding the monitor useful. We've had a great response since making the monitor public yesterday. We're constantly improving the application, and always looking at implementing feasible suggestions or feature requests made by users. We aim to make this the number one energy monitoring tool for South African users.
Thanks again for the support!
Regards
Darryn
www.myenergy.co.za