{"id":78853,"date":"2013-05-28T15:50:59","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T13:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=78853"},"modified":"2013-05-29T09:35:43","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T07:35:43","slug":"save-power-this-winter-pleads-eskom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/78853-save-power-this-winter-pleads-eskom.html","title":{"rendered":"Save power this winter, pleads Eskom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands more people need to switch off appliances during peak demand periods to help ease the national electricity load this winter, Eskom<\/a> said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“This winter will be different,” the power utility’s Free State general manager Lindi Mthombeni<\/a> told reporters in Bloemfontein.<\/p>\n

She said South Africa’s ageing power stations needed more maintenance, meaning units would be shut down during the coming winter.<\/p>\n

“This will put pressure on an already tight system and we must deal with peak demands, specifically try and deal with the afternoon,” Mthombeni said.<\/p>\n

Eskom alone could not deal with the peak demand, which was between 5pm and 9pm daily, and needed the help of its “stakeholders”.<\/p>\n

The utility’s integrated demand management (IDM) energy saving initiative was intended to encourage another three million customers to switch off during daily peak times.<\/p>\n

IDM spokesman Pannetjie Rossouw said South Africans had to work together to save this additional amount of electricity.<\/p>\n

Mthombeni said citizens needed to appreciate Eskom’s position.<\/p>\n

“Even if the new power stations come on line, it is good practice to conserve energy.”<\/p>\n

She said the “power alerts” system on national television and radio, which were used to indicate what the country’s electricity demand was, would stay and become a way of life for South Africans.<\/p>\n

“There is progress, but its not enough. We must increase it with the help of all citizens,” said Mthombeni.<\/p>\n

Although the alert system was working well, people had to react more rapidly, specifically when the alert status was orange.<\/p>\n

“We appeal to all South Africans to respond to the colours [alerts] immediately.”<\/p>\n

Mthombeni said Eskom had various initiatives to try and improve an already tight demand and supply situation this winter.<\/p>\n

More Eskom news<\/h3>\n

Joburg City Power in court over R800-million tender<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Power system under pressure: Eskom<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

SABC, Eskom to launch real-time power bulletin<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Green light for Eskom wind farm<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Energy minister backs nuclear power for SA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands more people need to switch off appliances during peak demand periods to help ease the national electricity load this winter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":76288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[181,7979],"class_list":["post-78853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-eskom","tag-quicknews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78853"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78855,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78853\/revisions\/78855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}