Joburg averts Eskom load shedding
City Power and City of Joburg have announced that they will keep the lights on during Eskom’s Stage 1 load shedding.
On Tuesday (14 April), City of Joburg through its partnership with City Power, said it would launch a ‘load limiting’ initiative to help to curtail household electricity consumption and reduce the potential of load shedding in the city.
Load limiting would be done via the 65,000 smart meters that City Power has deployed throughout Johannesburg.
The service enables City Power to accurately determine available supply in relation to consumption in real time, and alert households that are above the required consumption threshold to cut down on consumption.
City of Joburg said on Thursday that while Eskom implemented Stage 1 load countrywide as a result of constrained generating capacity, “City Power and the City of Joburg will not be load shedding in Johannesburg following the application of a range of load limiting interventions”.
“During this period of constrained supply, City Power will be getting excess capacity from the Kelvin power station and from the activation of load limiting in certain areas and of Ripple Control.”
When fully implemented, load limiting allows the City of Joburg to avert Stage 1, 2 and partial Stage 3 of load shedding.
The penetration of 65,000 installed smart meter will yield to 153 MW for City Power.
City Power said it will implement load limiting in two phases, firstly on demand when Eskom issues a notification to municipalities to shed load due to constrained supply. Secondly, the implementation of load limiting will be scheduled in advanced to reduce consumption and reduce the pressure on the grid.
City Power’s Ripple Control system provides the utility with the ability to remotely switch off geysers during periods when the electricity generating capacity is constrained in order to free up load and avert load shedding.
Ripple Control has already been implemented and it is still being deployed across Johannesburg.
“Through the implementation of Ripple Control, City Power is able to control approximately 110 MW of electricity, the rollout of solar water geysers around Johannesburg have generated an additional saving of 60 MW is possible power and the Kelvin power station has contributed an additional 150 MW of capacity,” said City Power MD, Sicelo Xulu earlier this week.
More on Eskom and City Power
City Power is now switching off your geyser
City of Joburg to introduce power ‘load limiting’
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