We are all sick of load shedding... all these schedules to keep up with and being without power for 2.5 to 5 hours in a single day just sucks.
I can't imagine the loss for businesses.
So, how can this be fixed?
Well, let us first identify the main problem why "Load Shedding" does not work.
INCENTIVE.
Incentive to save power, to be more clear.
In the current load shedding system nobody gives a damn about actually saving power.
We're all in this system that cuts power on a predetermined schedule, depending on the load (Stage 1-3).
A person in Boksburg has no incentive to shut down some of his appliances if his schedule has already passed. The guy sitting in Durban is perhaps scheduled and therefore sitting without power.
So round and round we go... the ones inside the schedule sit with zero power, and the rest of the country
off the schedule just use as much power as they want. Why? cause they don't care,
They aren't concerned about trying to save any power at all because they are not currently in load shedding. It's not their problem.
This is the flaw with the current load shedding system - nobody has any real incentive to try and save power.
"Why Turn off my TV's or lights, It's Witbanks turn to cut their power!"
So here's how it can be fixed.
In my system everyone will have power. all day. no scheduled power cutting.
Let's call it "Load Balancing".
In this system, the country is divided into groups. perhaps every city can be a group, or maybe every municipality.
For the sake of the argument, let's split by cities. Also, please do not nitpick MW values, I'm just using simple figures as an example and to make this easy to understand.
Eskom allocates each city a "power budget" based on historical data. Let's say Boksburg needed 100MW in the past.
We now only might have 80% of the total power capability we had a few years ago before that power station went down, so Boksburg has 80MW.
Every city now has a figure. Boksburg has 80MW, Durban might have 120MW, etc, etc.
Everyone with me so far?
Each city gets an allotted MW value. There is no more load shedding schedules. Nobody needs to sit with no power for 2.5 - 5 hours based on some time table.
Now, If the people of boksburg don't want to save power like the rest of us, and they go over their 80MW limit, their power gets cut. BOOM.
The power will switch back on in 15 minutes. They now have a chance to switch off excess appliances, lights, geysers, TVs, etc, etc. in this 15 minutes.
If, in 15 minutes, they have not switched off enough, the power will go off again - This time for 30 minutes. C'mon boksburg, get your act together now.
30 minutes later and nobody in boksburg is working together to save power? Now it will only try to come on in 1 hour. Still not enough? Now it will only check every 2 hours.... until they switch off enough.
They are the only ones responsible for being without power.
This gives an
incentive for the people of "Boksburg" to cut their electricity usage. If they can't cut their usage habits, only they are going to suffer... not everyone else.
Once people realize that if they don't work together, that only their own power will remain cut, I guarantee you people will start switching off appliances very quickly.
If George citizens manage their power well, they might never see any power cuts.
Twitter can be used, too. You subscribe to "Eskom_George" for example, and if George's power reaches 90% capacity, Eskom can sent out a tweet to that account. simple as that.
DSTV could have a channel with a map of south africa, color coded by power usage, and perhaps a list of the top 10 cities that might need to watch out.
This system makes it so that
everyone has power - just a little less. If we can manage our power better, there will be no cuts.
Businesses won't lose as much money due to power cuts, or needing to use generators.... and we don't need to sit in the 18th century for 2 to 5 hours every day.
People will be encouraged to save power, because if they can't save electricity, only they themselves will sit without it.
Your thoughts?
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