Go for the full ‘Monte’
R259 DEAL: TREAT YOUR LOVE TO A R1 500 VALENTINE’S DAY EXPERIENCE
You could win a stay at the Palazzo Hotel the night before your big date.
The flagship property of gaming, hotel and leisure giant Tsogo Sun, Montecasino in Johannesburg, is a “world at play”, where local and international pleasure-seekers and business travellers will find every possible entertainment and hospitality option.
It boasts:
A broad range of unique and versatile, five-star corporate hospitality, conferencing and events venues and facilities,
Various entertainment options for all ages,
A glittering casino,
Shopping experiences,
Three Tsogo Sun hotels, including the palatial Palazzo, the fun and trendy SunSquare at Montecasino and the contemporary Venetian-style Southern Sun Montecasino,
Three theatres, including the award-winning Teatro at Montecasino,
An outdoor piazza and entertainment area,
A variety of stylish restaurants, bars and supper clubs,
Numerous children’s entertainment options and
A luxury office park.
All are packaged to offer the very best in sophisticated entertainment options that deliver a unique and memorable experience.
Visitors are captivated by the Tuscan theming and lively buzz that is so much a part of the experience across all four corners of this all-encompassing leisure precinct – an atmosphere that keeps them returning again and again.
Add in ample parking and it is clear to see why Montecasino attracts in excess of 9.3 million visitors annually.
There are few properties that are as successful in providing hospitality and entertainment to the corporate and leisure market as the multi-awardwinning Montecasino.
February is the month of love, so why not treat your amore to an amazing outing to Johannesburg’s award-winning entertainment destination, Montecasino, and its new and exciting Couple Up deal.
For just R259 per couple (valued at R1 500), Montecasino Rewards Cardholders can treat themselves and their significant other or best friend to an outing consisting of a meal at any of the eight participating restaurants, the latest Hollywood release, as well as two chances to win a sexy Ferrari California T.
The deal gets better.
If you buy your deal before Saturday, you could win a stay at the Palazzo Hotel on Saturday – which includes breakfast on Sunday morning, 14 February.
This deal is valid during the month of February only.
Visit www.montecasino.co.za for more details and other great deals and, or follow them on Facebook or Twitter to be the first to know about other events at the complex.
Attracts more than 9.3 million visitors annually
Utility is usually able to ride out breakdowns
If there is no sudden increase in faults, the picture looks significantly more positive.
Wet coal aside, Eskom’s immediate outlook for its available generation capacity is much improved from a month ago. At that time, its three-month outlook published in its weekly system status reports indicated that until mid-April, it would “definitely” be between 1 000 megawatts (MW) and 2 000MW short to meet its reserve margin and “possibly demand” for six of the 13 weeks.
This picture has steadily improved from early January.
In the most recent update, published at the end of last week, it sees risk in just one week (specifically next week) where it is likely to be between 1 000MW and 2 000MW short to meet demand (including its operating reserve).
For seven of the next 11 weeks, it may be less than 1 000MW short to “meet reserves”.
There are an awful lot of assumptions here, chiefly that 12 000MW of capacity will be offline due to breakdowns (added to this is 2 200MW required for its operating reserve to get to the 14 200MW “planned risk level”).
If there is no sudden spike in breakdowns, the picture looks significantly more positive than it did at the start of the year.
Even if there is a forecasted shortfall, Eskom is typically able to meet this peak demand with its peaking power plants – either open cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) and pumped storage schemes, or OCGTs operated by independent power producers (IPPs).
The utility is usually also able to ride out breakdowns of the odd unit (generally an impact of 500MW to 800MW) by using this peaking power as baseload power.
However, it’s when a number of units trip or break down simultaneously that it is forced to implement load shedding, as these outages typically total 2 000MW (or higher).
The generation outlook for situations when there is this spike in breakdowns does not improve until the end of March.
For context, Eskom said on Tuesday that “14 375MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns and delays”.
This necessitated Stage 2 load shedding overnight as it needed to replenish its emergency generation reserves (chiefly its pumped storage schemes which it is using for baseload power, given the high level of breakdowns).
From its near-term outlook, the overall improvement has not come at the expense of a reduced forecast in demand, nor at the expense of the level of planned maintenance.
This suggests it could only be as a result of steadily improving generating capacity.
Eskom has also made a further material change to its assumptions from April: that unplanned outages would be 11 000MW, not the historical 12 000MW level that has been used for a number of years.
Kendal Unit 5, which can produce 640MW and has been on a long-term forced outage, is the only possible explanation for this as it returns to service in April.
It is unclear whether Eskom is continuing to plan using a risk level of 14 200MW in outages (or a likely risk scenario of 16 200MW), but this is not likely as it requires only 2 200MW as operating reserve.
Eskom’s systeam status report for the next year shows that it expects a small shortfall to meet reserves in most weeks for the remainder of the year.
When (or if) breakdowns do spike, load shedding is very likely until April when that Kendal unit returns to service (Koeberg Unit 1 returns to service in May).