• Eskom will start alerting users with smart meters that they should use less electricity as part of its Residential Load Management Project.
• The utility will run a pilot programme in Midrand and Sandton initially.
• Eskom said in April it could recoup as much as 1 500MW through demand side management.

Eskom doesn’t want to rely solely on building more capacity to address the energy crisis in South Africa. These are the words of the utility as it announces that South Africans will soon receive alerts on smart meters warning them to cut their energy usage.

This is part of the Residential Load Management Project which will be rolled out nationally following a pilot taking place in Midrand and Sandton. Through this project, the utility hopes to, “adjust and optimise the electricity consumption of customers to better balance the supply and demand of electricity on the grid.”

Back in April, Eskom said that it could recoup as much as 1 500MW by telling folks to switch off their geysers and switching off street lights.

“The primary goal of residential load management is to achieve a more efficient and reliable electricity grid by managing the demand for electricity, rather than relying solely on increasing supply,” Eskom said.

This is a bit of a slap in the face when one considers that if Eskom is able to achieve the 1 500MW saving through demand side management, it would still have had to implement Stage 2 loadshedding on Wednesday evening. The issue here is that Eskom can’t meet the energy demands of South Africans whether the street lights are working or geysers are switched off.

There are also very few details regarding how much Eskom will ask customers to reduce their consumption by. The utility could, as an example, ask customers to drastically reduce their consumption while they’re doing laundry or cooking dinner which aren’t things one can just stop mid-way through doing when the call comes in to reduce your consumption.

We aren’t fans of loadshedding but at least it’s predictable to a certain extent.

City of Johannesburg has also proposed self-imposed load limiting as a way to prevent loadshedding but that faces the same pitfalls as Eskom’s solution.

We suppose this is why a pilot programme is being done before a widespread rollout so that the problems and failings can be seen before millions face the problems.

We look forward to hearing more about this project as it rolls out in Midrand and Sandton.