Call it the Escomrades. The 14,895 runners who completed the 87.7km ultra-marathon from Pietermaritzburg to Durban on Sunday pushed out enough power to run the riverside city of Parys for more than half a day.
From winner Tete Dijana, who set a 5hr 13min 58sec down-run best time, all the way down to last-placed finisher Tebello Skasa in 11:58:59, the tar-pounders averaged about 7,000 watt hours each during the race, says Wits University physics professor Kevin Goldstein.
That totalled about 100 megawatt hours, which according to Goldstein was enough to light up:
- 5,400 homes for 12 hours;
- 65,000 homes for one hour; or
- a single home for about seven-and-a-half years.
The Comrades runners in total produced the same output as the 420MWh-Kelvin power station in Gauteng does in 15 minutes, he added.
Eskom’s website says Parys, in the northern Free State, runs on 8MW an hour, meaning the entrants would keep the lights burning there for about 13 hours.
There’s no way to harness the power of the runners out on the road, which is a perhaps not a bad thing considering what — or watt — might happen were Eskom to organise the Comrades or any other race, for that matter.
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Say watt? People's power at 'Escomrades' would light 65,000 homes
Image: David Isaacson
Call it the Escomrades. The 14,895 runners who completed the 87.7km ultra-marathon from Pietermaritzburg to Durban on Sunday pushed out enough power to run the riverside city of Parys for more than half a day.
From winner Tete Dijana, who set a 5hr 13min 58sec down-run best time, all the way down to last-placed finisher Tebello Skasa in 11:58:59, the tar-pounders averaged about 7,000 watt hours each during the race, says Wits University physics professor Kevin Goldstein.
That totalled about 100 megawatt hours, which according to Goldstein was enough to light up:
The Comrades runners in total produced the same output as the 420MWh-Kelvin power station in Gauteng does in 15 minutes, he added.
Eskom’s website says Parys, in the northern Free State, runs on 8MW an hour, meaning the entrants would keep the lights burning there for about 13 hours.
There’s no way to harness the power of the runners out on the road, which is a perhaps not a bad thing considering what — or watt — might happen were Eskom to organise the Comrades or any other race, for that matter.
Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.
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