City Power Implementing 'Load Limiting'

OrbitalDawn

OrbitalDawn

Ulysses Everett McGill
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City Power will warn residents when they need to switch off non-essentials to avoid load shedding.

City Power has urged residents not to panic as it implements ‘load limiting’ this week during peak hours.

About 92,000 homes have already had the smart meter installed, which allows City Power to warn residents when they need to switch off non-essentials or reduce load, in order to completely avoid Eskom’s load shedding.

City Power’s Sicelo Xulu said, “Your lights will go off for 30 seconds and they will go on again. This will happen five times. If you do not respond you’ll then be cut off completely from the system. If you respond you will be able to stay on and not be load shed.”

Smart meters will continue to be rolled out across the city.

In May, Tshwane Mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa dismissed claims that the municipality still owed more than R1 billion for the failed smart meter rollout project.

The city had announced that it terminated the contract with PEU Capital Partners for the installation of the devices, which started nearly two years ago.

By that time, only about 13,000 of the smart meters had been installed, out of an estimated one million consumers in the city.

Ramokgopa said AfriSake launched a court application for a review of the contract, which created difficulties for PEU.
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So htf does this work? How much do you have to switch off to not be shed? If you have to switch off everything you might as well be shed.

And how many lightbulbs/appliances will it kill by the constant switching on and off?
 
Meters will be gypo'd and those people will never be load shedded again.

Bring on those smart meters then I say :D


That is the problem however. There has been no buy in on this project and they are now trying to sell it to people with the promise of no load shedding. People buy into it, have the new meters installed and they still get butt farked. Sorry nê... This country is so susceptible to bullshyte, no wonder they keep trying it...
 
OrbitalDawn said:
How will they know you have your TV (and a few lights) on or not?

It's even more of a mission. Have to switch off all your appliances manually? Fsck that.
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I assume the meter checks how much power you are consuming, if you do not decrease the load going through that meter it is the meter that cuts you off. So instead of the mains to your house being cut from the street, it gets cut on the meter side if you do not decrease your load.
 
"Your lights will go off for 30 seconds and they will go on again" - so does this smart meter power your lights separately from your other electrical circuits?
 
They can still go stuff themselves.

Non-delivery of an essential service that is paid for because the people on top had/have their heads up their rear ends.
 
greg_SA said:
"Your lights will go off for 30 seconds and they will go on again" - so does this smart meter power your lights separately from your other electrical circuits?
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No the meter outside will interrupt your power every 30seconds until you decrease your load.

that means your whole house, they cant separate your lights from everything else.

it's everything that will be interrupted every 30 seconds, 5 times, and if you still don't decrease, you will then be load shedded for the full duration.
 
greg_SA said:
"Your lights will go off for 30 seconds and they will go on again" - so does this smart meter power your lights separately from your other electrical circuits?
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Nope, its exactly like throwing the main switch, I hope the insurance companies take note regarding how these on's and off's will lead to an increase in claims
 
cobusv said:
No the meter outside will interrupt your power every 30seconds until you decrease your load.

that means your whole house, they cant separate your lights from everything else.

it's everything that will be interrupted every 30 seconds, 5 times, and if you still don't decrease, you will then be load shedded for the full duration.
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Its really annoying how "lights" has become a general term for electricity.... "Keeping the lights on", etc.
 
Segg said:
Nope, its exactly like throwing the main switch, I hope the insurance companies take note regarding how these on's and off's will lead to an increase in claims
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Most insurance companies no longer pay out for damaged appliances or electronics due to load shedding. Their reasoning is that load shedding is no longer an unplanned event and you need to protect your appliances and electronics as you know it is occurring.

It was in the news a couple months back.
 
AdrianH said:
Most insurance companies no longer pay out for damaged appliances or electronics due to load shedding. Their reasoning is that load shedding is no longer an unplanned event and you need to protect your appliances and electronics as you know it is occurring.

It was in the news a couple months back.
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I can understand that in terms of load shedding and it's related surges, but the whole on and off thing is another story
 
The only problem for me with this system (which I really like) is the lack of transparency around how they manage demand versus capacity. Unless you know what each household is like (number of people in it primarily), how do you implement this fairly?

I (single) live in the same area as my sister and brother (2 households with spouses plus kids plus one set of in-laws) - if we all have to meet the same average consumption target, then they're in a worse position than I am.
 
Neoprod said:
The only problem for me with this system (which I really like) is the lack of transparency around how they manage demand versus capacity. Unless you know what each household is like (number of people in it primarily), how do you implement this fairly?

I (single) live in the same area as my sister and brother (2 households with spouses plus kids plus one set of in-laws) - if we all have to meet the same average consumption target, then they're in a worse position than I am.
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Maybe it's based on past use?
 
To make matters worse, it appears that this load limiting is NOT tied into the load shedding schedules.

People in our area, which is only on the list for 20:00-00:00 stage 2, are being load limited and are now sitting in darkness.
 
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