Ripple Relay Installation?

[Praeses]

First of all, can somebody explain to me in laymen's terms what's the function of a ripple relay? (No international bandwidth, so please explain)

Secondly, my area is supposedly undergoing installation of these ripple relays by the company which manages bloem's electricity (Centlec).
How will I be influenced by the installation?
http://www.centlec.co.za/power_shed/Schedule for Install of Reles.htm
What do they mean with "amount"?

 

[Turiko]

A ripple relay, in laymans terms:

it is a remote controlled switch that the council can control. They turn your geyser off when the deman for electricity is very large, in order to reduce the load and prevent a power outage. Historically it was used as a cost-management tool but today with power being as critical as it is it is used to avert disaster.

Secondly, my area is supposedly undergoing installation of these ripple relays by the company which manages bloem's electricity (Centlec).
How will I be influenced by the installation?
http://www.centlec.co.za/power_shed/...of Reles.htm
What do they mean with "amount"?

You will be influenced in that you will need to be at your home to let them in to do the install. They will either install it outside (if there is a box) or on your distribution board and will modify the wiring.

The amount referred to in there looks like the number of installations. I am not sure. It could even be the amount of controllable load.

I would be very interested if you could send me some pics after they've done the installation. PM me for details

 

[Praeses]

A ripple relay, in laymans terms:

it is a remote controlled switch that the council can control. They turn your geyser off when the deman for electricity is very large, in order to reduce the load and prevent a power outage. Historically it was used as a cost-management tool but today with power being as critical as it is it is used to avert disaster.



You will be influenced in that you will need to be at your home to let them in to do the install. They will either install it outside (if there is a box) or on your distribution board and will modify the wiring.

The amount referred to in there looks like the number of installations. I am not sure. It could even be the amount of controllable load.

I would be very interested if you could send me some pics after they've done the installation. PM me for details

Thanks for the reply. Our geyser is already remotely controlled as far as I can tell since at 12 in the afternoon the water is still ice-cold. Do you think they'll maybe load-shed specific whole houses remotely (instead of whole areas) or would this only be for geysers?
We have one of those boxes outside of the house, locked of course, so I don't know if I'll even know when they do any installation to take pictures.
PS: The house is ~25 years old and it has the geyser-remote-switch thing as far as I can tell from all the cold showers . I guess the installation would be for older houses then?

 

[Turiko]

Do you think they'll maybe load-shed specific whole houses remotely (instead of whole areas) or would this only be for geysers?

The Zellweger coding system used does allow for a single house in the network to be controlled but generally they control them in banks to prevent peak draws. This is generally at the present time only used for geysers (although there is other data in there as I discovered, for example, switching commands and public lighting control are transmitted using the same system) Eskom did say they wanted to turn off airconditioners and pool pumps on additional channels but I doubt they will do this because it would cause very strong reaction from the public and lead to customers bypassing the ripple receivers.

PS: The house is ~25 years old and it has the geyser-remote-switch thing as far as I can tell from all the cold showers . I guess the installation would be for older houses then?

Most likely they are upgrading- Your house likely has an electro-mechanical receiver and like here in Roodepoort, an antiquated injection plant and what is happening is the errors transmitted by the system cause the electromechanical receivers to go haywire leading to cold water. On average, here in Roodepoort, there's at least 4-5 errors per week, where they start sending data that is way off with the timing and the EM receiver gets lost and switches the load off incorrectly. In the specific area where I stay we also have a problem where the signal fades at night and the electronic receivers sometimes see this a low frequency event and turn the geysers off.