Naziziphiwo Buso
The Nelson Mandela Bay council has adopted a load-shedding mitigation strategy- a move that the city hopes will soften the crippling impact of load-shedding on the local economy.
Electricity and Energy Boss Lance Grootboom explained that the plan was to reduce the city's load on a short, medium and long-term basis.
He says one of the short-term goals is to explore the electricity load curtailment of qualifying customers.
"In the medium term, we foresee the improvement of the electricity saving capacity of the 84 000 geysers, remotely controlled with ripple control switches, by ensuring better compliance by those consumers currently bypassing the system. If implemented correctly, 50 MW can be switched off remotely when required."
He says another low-hanging fruit in the medium term is the refurbishment of the gas turbine at Mount Road with an installed capacity of 50 MW that will operate at around 40 MW (which is equivalent to two stages of load shedding).
He says a service provider will be appointed to assess the facility and to provide a report on what is required to get it operational.
He also says, a pilot project to curtail the electricity load of existing consumers, with the requisite smart technology already installed at their premises, will be implemented to reduce electricity usage without completely switching off their electricity supply.
Last month, the Northern Alliance (NA) threatened to pull out of the coalition, ostensibly because its partners had not bought into the research project.
At the time, energy expert Christo Nicholls from Stellenbosch University said the pilot was focused on load containment and load limiting instead of load shedding for consumers.
Nicholls had previously presented to certain councillors in a virtual meeting explaining that he had the buy-in from 10 other municipalities around the country including the Dr Beyer’s Naude local municipality.
He said industrial customers would be given a battery solution that would allow the municipality to comply with Eskom’s request for load-shedding, but without impacting trade.
Additionally, the municipality has also approved a sustainable energy plan 2030, a long-term plan that includes facilitating for consumers to install Rooftop Photovoltaic on their premises and receive rebates for energy not used through a net-billing tariff.
The Municipality also plans to go to market and procure kWhs from credible Independent Power Producers.
"The long-term plan will also seek to deploy renewable energy initiatives through the NMBM buildings and infrastructure in order to reduce electricity demand of the City and that of the national grid."
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