Eskom wants to manage your load!

[CataclysmZA]

I bought a few of the local newspapers this evening and one of them, Jeffrey Bay's Our Times, carries a few leaflets about the upcoming elections, Scamral and other niceties. Since the e-Tolls scandal I've taken to flipping through newspapers and looking more closely at the adverts and articles because Scamral said that their initial advert didn't draw enough public opinion because people just didn't care enough about it (which is true, because it was tiny).

The local Our Times carried an advert paid for by Eskom and the Kouga Municipality and alerts residential owners about regulations that were put through parliament in 2012 (where and when I don't know) and that this whole operation is paid for by Eskom and NERSA.



Who is Eskotek and why/when/how did they acquire the tender for this project? According to their website they are a BEE company that specialises in energy reduction methodologies and products, but this tells me nothing about who heads them and whether they have ties into the government.

When were the regulations they talk about drafted and put through parliament? Nothing in the advert specifies this. I've found one article and one review paper commissioned by NERSA that seems to point to the motivation behind this rollout, which is that solar geysers aren't dropping the national grid usage as expected. I haven't had time yet to browse through the paper's findings or the regulator's performance plan for the period in which this project falls. I failed to find anything on NERSA's site about this rollout.

These switches are interesting as well. They replace your geyser switches and communicate with a remote server over GPRS.

It gets installed into your distribution board and replaces the geyser switch.

Here's the interesting part. When there's a distribution board without a prepaid meter, it replaces the geyser switch and gets installed with a STS display, which communicates with it wirelessly. I see a pin-pad on the display, but I have no idea what its real functions are. Maybe it reports your geyser's energy use, who knows. I'll see if I can find out more about it tomorrow.

Alternatively (at least from what the picture tells me), it gets installed into the same point in your distribution box but also gets hooked up to your prepaid meter before running power back into your house. This will then report your usage via SMS to a metering and management server managed by Escotek on behalf of the municipality while they train government employees to use it.

Escotek says that they've previously rolled this out into several municipalities and this is the first time I've ever heard of this widget and the first I've heard of it being rolled out into Kouga municipality. Does anyone else have something like this installed into their homes already? How does it work for you? Were there any issues with installation?

 

[Voicy]

Munics have been managing load for ages via ripple relays installed in houses where they switch off your geyser remotely.

 

[Rickster]

We have something like this but it has nothing to do with SMS's and stuff like that, basically its just a timer to turn the geyser on and off.

 

[HavocXphere]

No thanks. The PTA plan to use peak & off peak rates and prepaid meters suits me better. I'd rather manage the actually elec stuff myself....more options.

Munics have been managing load for ages via ripple relays installed in houses where they switch off your geyser remotely.

The old ripple system was left to deteriorate and then abandoned. Would have been usefully right about now. (Another fine example of foresight).


>>communicate with a remote server over GSM or GPRS radio waves.

Same thing really...gprs is the first data protocol under the gsm umbrella.

 

[Fudzy]

No thanks. The PTA plan to use peak & off peak rates and prepaid meters suits me better. I'd rather manage the actually elec stuff myself....more options.

The old ripple system was left to deteriorate and then abandoned. Would have been usefully right about now. (Another fine example of foresight).

>>communicate with a remote server over GSM or GPRS radio waves.

Same thing really...gprs is the first data protocol under the gsm umbrella.

That's something that interest me. Between my house and my folks place I have never heard of a conventional or prepaid meter being replaced but a meter with a GSM modem? Will there still even be such a network in 10 years time? 5 years times even? Or will it become the white space that TV broadcast signals should hopefully become. I just don't have that much faith in the longevity of the modems.

 

[HavocXphere]

Pretty sure you've got something mighty confused there. Its 3 entirely unrelated things

...the old ripple system (Apartheid era)
...the PTA prepaid rollout with peak/offpeak (maybe)
...this new fake "ripple" system that OP is talking about

Neither ripple/"ripple" system will replace the meter itself.

The modems are fine...they go to VC/MTN and buy special SIMs for this that are active for a billion years but only allow for a trickle of data.

 

[CataclysmZA]

Munics have been managing load for ages via ripple relays installed in houses where they switch off your geyser remotely.

Huh, what do you know. This is actually the first time I've heard of a local rollout for this project. Even when I was living in Port Elizabeth in a relatively new apartment complex they didn't have ripple relay switches installed.

>>communicate with a remote server over GSM or GPRS radio waves.

Same thing really...gprs is the first data protocol under the gsm umbrella.

This I do know I'm not sure why they refer to GSM because you can't have one without the other and GSM is circuit-based, not packet-based.

Between my house and my folks place I have never heard of a conventional or prepaid meter being replaced but a meter with a GSM modem? Will there still even be such a network in 10 years time? 5 years times even?

I know that there's a system that's similar to the one you're imagining currently in use in the UK, where the entire local or sometimes national grids are monitored and administered by the municipalities through remotely controlled prepaid or post-paid meters that have GSM modems. The plan there is to have every home installed with a "Smart Meter" by 2020.

 

[now05ster]

So that's what the "ripple control receiver" module in our electricity box is...

Anyways in Humansdorp they do it the old fashioned way and in-laws say that people go door to door at a certain period in the day and come and switch the geysers off. Apparently legit according to neighbours. In-laws have never let them, for obvious reasons.

 

[dunkyd]

Ripple was turned off in Krugersdorp some years ago after a legal challenge by residents. Unconstitutional interference.

 

[The_Unbeliever]

We will manage our own load ourselves, thank you Eishkom. We don't trust you.

kthanxbai.

 

[CataclysmZA]

So that's what the "ripple control receiver" module in our electricity box is...

Is it the same unit? Can you take a picture of it and upload it here? Who installed it and when?

Anyways in Humansdorp they do it the old fashioned way and in-laws say that people go door to door at a certain period in the day and come and switch the geysers off. Apparently legit according to neighbours. In-laws have never let them, for obvious reasons.

Surely you can't be serious about this? Do people actually make the trip to the houses and do something that the residents could perfectly well do for themselves?

Ripple was turned off in Krugersdorp some years ago after a legal challenge by residents. Unconstitutional interference.

When did this happen? Is there anything that I can read about this?

 

[now05ster]

Is it the same unit? Can you take a picture of it and upload it here? Who installed it and when?



Surely you can't be serious about this? Do people actually make the trip to the houses and do something that the residents could perfectly well do for themselves?



When did this happen? Is there anything that I can read about this?

I'm serious about what the mother-in-law told me about Humansdorp. Again, these are allegations...

Will take pic when from work tomorrow morning.

 

[genetic]

This is nothing new. Council fed load management has been around since the 70's. This is just the digital version which negates the use of old ripple relay switches for digital wireless switches.

They're not really hiding anything.

You can actually hear the impulse hums from the old ripple relay signal over poorly earthed audio equipment or electrical appliances.

 

[genetic]

Here's a little more info on the subject;

The local council is usually subject to steep rates for peak demand (peak means higher than usual) by ESKOM. Therefore in peak periods, such as when people get home from work to cook food, the local council will send commands to turn off the largest load in the home- the water heater or "geyser" to reduce peak demand for electricity.
Then when peak demand subsides, normal operation is restored.
An example of a modern ripple receiver installed in homes.

My interest to this was drawn when in 1993 we moved into a different area. I noticed the house was fitted with a Zellweger Uster receiver circa 1975.

http://www.anime-za.net/tech/ripple_index.html

 

[genetic]

The old ripple system was left to deteriorate and then abandoned. Would have been usefully right about now. (Another fine example of foresight).

Source?

I know Ekhuruleni actively use theirs.

 

[xrapidx]

Hmmm... Time to start a small radius cell blocker gadget company.

 

[CataclysmZA]

For those of you interested, I fired off some questions about these ripple switches to my municipality's electrical systems area manager and to Escotek themselves. These guys seem very eager to get the proper message out to the public and they answered all my questions, as you'll see below.

1) When will this project roll-out take place?
2) Is this going to be rollout for a small subset of JBay’s residents, or for all of them? The Our Times advert specifies that the project works on the assumption that power will be saved by switching off 6200 houses in the area.
3) If only for a small subset, are there criteria for selection?
4) Is this an opt-in project? If so, are there incentives to allow installation of the switch?
5) If a household already switches off their geyser in peak hours, what’s the point to installing this beyond convenience? Is it to allow for pre-emptive load metering on-the-fly depending on strain on the local and national grid?
6) Will this be installed into houses with solar geysers?
7) Who does the installations locally?
8) Will the installed switches be the ones that have GSM/GPRS connectivity? If so, where will the monitoring servers be located, at Escotek’s premises in Port Elizabeth or elsewhere?
9) If located at Escotek’s premises, does the Kouga municipality have a service-level agreement (SLA) for guaranteed server uptime?
10) If located elsewhere in the country, is there a SLA between Escotek and the hosting company for guaranteed uptime of the monitoring servers?
11) Escotek says on their website that they have successfully completed a project in Port Elizabeth. Are there any reports on this that I can read?
12) The advert alludes to regulations drafted and passed by NERSA in 2012 that require municipalities to comply with a project like this. Which regulations are these and where can I access them?

This afternoon, I got this satisfactory response from them:

Good day Mr. Wesley Fick,
Hope you are well.

With regards to your enquire below the following for your information.

1. The RLMS Project commenced in Kouga during January 2014 in Humansdorp and St. Francis Bay respectively. Our schedule is to complete these two areas by the end of April 2014 and commence in Jeffrey’s Bay during May 2014 until the end of October, maybe November 2014. The total number of ripple load receivers in Kouga Municipal area is 6200 with approximately 1200 in Humansdorp, 600 in St. Francis Bay and 4400 in Jeffrey’s Bay, Paradise Beach and Aston Bay respectively.
2. All residential houses in Jeffrey’s Bay, Aston Bay and Paradise Beach with a switchable geyser(2kw and higher) and where permanent residents are residing will receive a SmartRippel load receiver.
3. N/A
4. This project is a national initiative by Eskom DSM, NERSA and local Municipalities to reduce the electricity demand during peak times(18:00 to 20:00) during weekdays. There is no incentives to the residents but it will help Kouga Municipality and Eskom in reducing its load demand during peak hours; and as and when instructed by Eskom when Eskom experience a demand/supply problem, especially during the winter months or/and during maintenance & repairs of power plants.
5. The SmartRippel is controlled by a specific designed software program and will not neglect to switch of geysers during peak times. As you mentioned it is also very useful when Eskom experience a higher than normal demand in electricity, especially during peak times. A one command to all can control all receivers at once making this a very effective tool in reducing load as and when necessary. Please refer to the “http - link” below.
6. The SmartRippel load receiver will at this stage not be installed on high pressure solar geysers.
7. Escotek Services (Pty) Ltd was appointed by Eskom DSM and Kouga Municipality as the main contractor with a local based electrical contractor to perform the actual installations. Eskom DSM and Kouga Munic emphasized on local labour.
8. The SmartRipple load receivers are based on the “Ripple” technology and communication to these units are therefore controlled by a specific designed software program from our offices in PE. Please refer to the “http - link” below.
9. The Control Room is in PE and yes there is a SLA in place between Kouga and Escotek Services for a period of 3 years. A SLA between an Esco and a Munic formed part of Eskom DSM criteria during the approval phases of the project.
10. Escotek and NMBM signed a SLA on the approximately 89,000 ripple load receivers installed since 2005 in PE, Uitenhage and Despatch respectively and Escotek is currently still responsible to control, address and maintain all RLMS related matters in these three areas above. This will be the same with regards to the Kouga project.
11. I will request approval from Eskom DSM to provide you with a “Close Out Report” on both phases in PE. Please advice that this will only be available once Eskom DSM approval is received. You are welcome to enquire on specific matters with regards to the PE RLMS project and I will gladly address accordingly.
12. Please find the attached document as requested with regards to NERSA.

Please refer to the ling below for detailed information on ripple technology and load management aspects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_management

I hope you find this in order and please advice on any additional project related matters.

Regards
Louwrens A Dreyer
Manager Operations
Escotek (Pty) Ltd

View attachment 114820

 

[HavocXphere]

Source?

I know Ekhuruleni actively use theirs.

The decabit system? Bit surprised but seems possible...I see a thread here where people are jury-rigging old houses to skip the ripple...so obviously its still being sent @2012.

Source - none...just know a lot of people in the area with houses that used to get ripple'd regularly and then nothing. Stopped like 10 years ago +-. Most have replaced their geysers in the mean time with ones not ripple capable. Tshwane metro.

This afternoon, I got this satisfactory response from them:

Nice. Maybe we can make this oke minister of infrastructure or something...

 

[Space_Chief]

Why don't the w@nkers have different tariffs instead? One for off peak and one for on peak? That way if you really need that hot water you shower at 2am and not during peak times and save money. If you must bath at 10pm then you get to pay a bit more or u have to budget accordingly.

 

[genetic]

Why don't the w@nkers have different tariffs instead? One for off peak and one for on peak? That way if you really need that hot water you shower at 2am and not during peak times and save money.

Because most people will still use power during peak. It's easier for a municipality to cut non essential energy guzzlers when they need to.