Early results from a pilot project, whereby customers are charged higher rates for power on selected peak demand days, were “very promising”, Eskom said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“The critical peak day pricing is a pricing option Eskom is currently piloting with customers who have opted into the pilot,” Eskom’s media desk said.<\/p>\n
The pilot project began in October 2013 and would run until October this year.<\/p>\n
“How it works is customers are informed a day ahead of the critical peak day and they decide whether to reduce consumption or to pay the higher price.”<\/p>\n
The pilot project limits the number of critical peak days to 17 days per year.<\/p>\n
“The customers on the pilot are customers that have time-of-use metering, which means that it cannot be offered at this stage to residential customers.”<\/p>\n
The initial results indicated that customers were, on average, reducing consumption by a quarter on the critical peak days.<\/p>\n
“At this stage the tariff is only available to the pilot customers… and Eskom will, once the results of the pilot are completed, make a decision as to whether to make this a standard offer to customers.”<\/p>\n
In recent weeks Eskom has struggled to keep the lights on, with equipment failures, maintenance backlogs, and financial woes.<\/p>\n
Eskom began with stage one rotational power cuts on Tuesday morning, but later escalated to stage two. This would continue until 10pm.<\/p>\n
Stage one allows for up to 1000MW of the national load to be cut, stage two for up to 2000MW, and stage three for up to 4000MW.<\/p>\n
In December 5, Eskom implemented stage three load-shedding.<\/p>\n
Eskom has repeatedly warned that the power system would remain “extremely constrained” for the rest of the Summer.<\/p>\n
It has warned in previous years that winter is an energy-intensive time requiring power saving.<\/p>\n
We are not bankrupt: Eskom<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Eskom wants to raise electricity prices<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Eskom bailout not the answer: Finance Minister<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n