Eskom’s pilot project of load-limiting in Fourways, Johannesburg, came with many challenges in its first week, but the power utility seems to be ironing them out.
The pilot project focused on customers with smart prepaid meters and aims to reduce customer’s electricity capacity from 60/80 amps to 10 amps. This is to manage and optimise electricity consumption to balance the supply and demand on the grid particularly during stages 1 and 4 of load-shedding.
However, residents were subject to several minutes of intermittent power supply, with lights flickering on and off every few seconds. Others had to restore their power supply at the Eskom electricity boxes outside their homes, said DA ward 94 councillor David Foley.
“People’s lights would go on and off, causing problems. On Thursday I went to help some of the elderly and turned on their electricity boxes outside their homes. It seems the problem is getting resolved by Eskom,” he told TimesLIVE.
Resident Jolene Cusens said they adhered to the rules of the project from the start by turning off geysers before load-shedding starts and only have a few lights and the fridge on. But once the blackouts kicked in, the lights started flickering instead.
“Without fail, when the load-shedding began, our power turned off and on every five seconds for up to 10 minutes in a row. This is not limited to the start of the load-shedding slot ... Our power is then turned off completely until the end of the load-shedding slot, and sometimes over the scheduled time,” she said.
Eskom Gauteng spokesperson Amanda Qithi said they were aware of the problem and will be investigating it.
“We are aware of challenges experienced by some customers during load-shedding [load-limiting] ... The matter is being investigated. We apologise for the inconvenience caused and plead for patience during this pilot period,” she said.
Dovey met with the power utility on Wednesday and discovered the issue was related to software programming.
“Eskom has been great. The benefit of the load-limiting is that ... the impact on equipment is lessened because they are not messed up with the on-and-off. Load-shedding tends to rip the transformers apart and there is often stealing of bits of pieces of it, as well as cables — and load-limiting is going to help a lot.”
“With this project, things like kettles, air fryers and pool pumps must be off and it makes a huge difference. People can at least have lights on for security purposes.”
TimesLIVE
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