Power Report: Apps bringing light to Eskom's gloom

One of the most frustrating aspects of load-shedding - and there are many - is not knowing when it is going to strike.

Sure, Eskom warns customers when the grid is under strain, when the risk is high, and when load-shedding is under way. But, seriously, who has the time or patience to spend the day checking online for a possible power cut?

And, worse still, who wants to consult a municipal schedule to see if and when your area will be affected? If you're not off the mark quickly enough, and yours is the first area to be switched off, you'll probably already be in the dark by then anyway.

It's into this particular information blackout that several free mobile apps and alert services have recently stepped. And they're making Eskom's power cuts a little less painful.

There are at least 10 mobile apps to choose from, all with slightly different offerings and limitations, but all with the same basic premise: giving consumers real-time warnings of pending power cuts in the areas in which they live or work - or intend visiting.

The apps include GridWatch, Load Shedding (LCR Technologies), Load Shedding Notifier and ShedAlert. Even Eskom has its own app, but I'm told it's useless. No big surprise there.

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One of the highest-rated load-shedding apps - South Africa's No1 on iOS's top free charts, ahead of WhatsApp this week - is the cheekily named EskomSePush, which is available to both iOS and Android users, and covers some 50, 000 suburbs, including all the big municipalities (and some small), and all direct customers of Eskom.

It not only notifies me through push messages on my smartphone of when I can expect load-shedding in my selected areas - and provides a countdown in hours and minutes until switch off - but it offers me a three-day "forecast" of the risk of power cuts.

The forecast comes from combining Eskom's system bulletins with a few of EskomSePush's "own methods for detection of grid health".

Said co-founder Dan Wells: "One of these methods includes monitoring the output frequency [50Hz] of the grid ... we know too many electrical engineers!"

Wells and Herman Maritz, who both work in the mobile banking industry in Cape Town, developed the app in their spare time.

"South Africans need to be informed, and load-shedding schedules are confusing," said Wells.

The app, which has more than 64, 000 users, also boasts a fun "hidden" feature - a cellphone flashlight that switches on when you click the logo on the app's "about" screen.

block_quotes_start We sometimes only have 30-45 minutes warning from Eskom and we have to get all the alerts out before then. block_quotes_end

For those who prefer e-mail alerts to mobile ones, or those who want both, there's nothing out there to beat the service offered by Cape Town-based company Sharenet.

Launched in December as a "social, non-profit" pilot project by Sharenet - which provides market data, research, analytics, market timing, news and online trading for the JSE - Load Shedding Alerts offer real-time customised load-shedding e-mails direct to your inbox. It includes notifications of load-shedding status changes, on-day power cutting times, and 15-minute warnings of impending load-shedding in your area.

The e-mail warning is hugely useful for last-minute kettle boiling, charging your cellphone and saving your computer work before the power is cut.

The service prioritises e-mail alerts to those in areas that appear first on the day's load-shedding schedule, to ensure you are not taken by surprise. As with EskomSePush, consumers can set notifications for several areas - such as where their homes, offices and shopping malls are situated.

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Sharenet also offers an excellent Loadshedding Notifier Android app, with an iOS version due in the next eight weeks. However, for now, the service is only offered in Cape Town, Durban, Gauteng and Pretoria, and excludes direct Eskom customers.

Dwaine van Vuuren, who runs research and product development for Sharenet, said the service was initially developed in-house as an aid for the company itself.

"It has exploded, and the interest was well beyond what we had anticipated," he said. Indeed.

Already, 150, 000 consumers have signed up to the e-mail service, with 5000 new subscribers a week. The app has 25, 000 users.

"We were unprepared for the take-up," said Van Vuuren. "At one stage, over 10, 000 people per day were signing up and our systems could not cope. We sometimes only have 30-45 minutes warning from Eskom and we have to get all the alerts out before then."

The company now runs a battery of e-mail servers optimised to deliver messages in time. It prioritises those areas that will be cut off first, before sending out e-mail alerts for areas that will be blacked out a bit later.

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From today, the service will introduce "calendaring": the ability to look at schedules a week ahead so that consumers can decide, for example, on what day it would be best to have a party.

"So, basically, you can look seven days ahead to see how you will be impacted should Eskom trigger load-shedding stage one, two or three," said Van Vuuren. "It's like the e-mail we send subscribers each morning to tell them what might happen to them if Eskom should load-shed that day."

Next month the app will be further updated to monitor consumers' diesel generators.

The "fuel gauge" part of the Sharenet app will monitor the diesel left in a consumer's generator tank, offer a countdown, and send an alert when only two hours' worth of fuel is left.

Once sponsors (read advertisers) come on board, Van Vuuren plans to expand to other major metros as well as introducing GPS location capabilities, which will alert users to load-shedding wherever they are.

But whichever service or app you use, the fact remains that they all rely on load-shedding schedules and Eskom alerts - so the app creators are not privy to sudden changes to the timetable. Many don't cover all areas and some exclude direct customers of Eskom.

They're also not there to determine what suburb you live or work in, so if you're unsure of your specific suburb's description (some are divided into north, south and central) or you suspect you may be in a borderline zone, contact your municipality for clarity before signing up.

For more, visit https://eskom.sepush.co.za and sharenet.co.za/loadshedding

Contact Megan Power

E-mail: consumer@sundaytimes.co.za

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