Some residents in Johannesburg have been able to escape power cuts resulting from rolling blackouts due to Eskom’s load limiting project.
The project involves the installation of smart meters in homes with phase one of the project having begun in Fourways, north of Johannesburg last month.
The meters allow customers to continue to use essential appliances and keep the lights on during stages 1 to 4 rolling blackouts.
Eskom plans to roll out the meters in every home in South Africa at a cost of R 15 billion over the next few years.
Senior Engineering Consultant at Eskom, Edison Lokorela says the project also has benefits for the power utility.
“Instead of cutting you of completely during load shedding, we use load limiting as a schedule. We reduce the output during load shedding schedule times to 10pm which is equivalent to 2300 watts. We get the benefit of reduced power; we get some power back into the network and customers are not completely in the dark. They can still have the lights on, TV of course, you cannot run the geyser and you cannot cook,” Lokorela says.
Stage 6 loadshedding will continue to be implemented over the weekend, in order to replenish emergency reserves and set a possible path for the reduction in stages of loadshedding in the coming week. pic.twitter.com/hnHscIonUl
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) July 13, 2023
