City Power, the City of Johannesburg\u2019s electricity utility, is clamping down on individual households who consume too much power, in an attempt to curb load shedding in the city.<\/p>\n
City Power has implemented ‘ripple control’ – the act of remote switching of geysers – and ‘load limiting’, which uses smart meters to reduce the impact of the load on its grid.<\/p>\n
The power company has around 390,000 customers, of which around 150,000 have smart meters. These smart meters can be accessed remotely and switched off when households consume too much electricity.<\/p>\n
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena told Times Live<\/a><\/strong> that load limiting through smart meters can give City Power up to 70MW. The power company aims to install 330,000 meters which will yield 775MW.<\/p>\n How does load limiting work?<\/strong><\/p>\n Eskom provides City Power with about 90% of its power. The state power utility will notify City Power of the required megawatt contribution needed.<\/p>\n City Power then initiates the load limiting process by sending an SMS to customers alerting them to the percentage reduction it requires.<\/p>\n It also sends a message to the smart power unit indicating the number of megawatts needed from a particular household.<\/p>\n For those households using too much power, the smart meter disconnects power supply to the home. To get power back, that home needs to switch off non-essential items, until it’s power consumption is at a level deemed acceptable by City Power.<\/p>\n Similarly, load limiting is the act of remotely switching off of geysers during peak hours, which gives City Power up to 100MW of additional power.<\/p>\n City Power has uploaded a calculator<\/a> <\/strong>for customers to calculate how much electricity their home uses, and which appliances use the most electricity.<\/p>\n The power provider has said it wants to be less reliant on power supply from Eskom amid increasing load shedding, which has become a major financial burden on the group.<\/p>\n