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The town of Bedford in the Eastern Cape will become the second in the province to undergo load-limiting by Eskom from Thursday.
The power utility said this followed the "successful activation" of Adelaide also within the Raymond Mhlaba Local Municipality.
The load-limiting project introduced by the embattled power utility focusses on selected customers with smart meters and is part of Eskom's "demand-side management" initiative being implemented across the country.
"Electricity load-limiting through smart meters is being implemented to better balance the supply and demand of electricity on the grid during stages 1 to 4 of load shedding allowing customers to continue to use essential appliances with a capacity of up to 10 Amperes," said coastal cluster General Manager, Mbulelo Yedwa.
He said customers in Bedford that are in networks with high smart meter penetration" will not be load shed, but load limited up to Stage 4".
Yedwa said an hour before the start of load shedding, these customers in selected pilot areas will be prompted to reduce their consumption from 60 Amperes to 10 Amperes by sending a message to the customer interface unit (CIU) of the smart meter.
"Customer will also be notified by text message. If the customer load is still above 10 Amperes, the smart meter will automatically make two more attempts 30 seconds apart. After 3 failed attempts, the next reset will be in 30 minutes.
"It is the responsibility of the customer to reduce consumption by switching off non-essential appliances and only keep connected essential appliances up to a maximum of 10 Amperes for the duration of the load limiting period," he said.
