City Power vows to keep load shedding at bay

 

City Power – the City of Johannesburg’s electricity entity – has put several measures in place to ensure the city’s electricity supply is secure.
 

Addressing delegates on the last day of the 64th annual Association of Municipal Electricity Undertakings (AMEU) Convention at Gallagher Estate on Wednesday, Stuart Webb, City Power’s General Manager: Plant Condition Monitoring said the electricity entity was committed to ensuring the security of Johannesburg’s electricity supply.
 

“In 2008, we as a city experienced forced outages, which were dubbed ‘load shedding’. These rolling blackouts adversely affected residents, businesses and the economy. As a country, we were ill-prepared for the situation but much has happened since then. City Power has made a commitment not to have a repeat of such drastic measures,” said Webb. 
 

He explained that for the electricity grid to remain stable, the generation capacity must balance or exceed the load demand.

When the load demand is greater than the generation capacity, the entire grid becomes unstable and the possibility of blackouts arises.
 

Webb said City Power had put in place several programmes to ensure the electricity grid’s stability. These measures include partnering with several high-end consumers to reduce or shift their load demands when required.
 

“To date, there have been 112 key customers who have indicated their willingness to participate in a voluntary demand response programme. These key customers represent large businesses with large consumptions. To incentivise them, these partners receive a R1.10 rebate per kWh,” said Webb.
 

Other programmes include a concept called “geyser control”, which allows City Power to remotely access geysers to reduce capacity when demand is tight or when there is an emergency situation.

Webb said “geyser control” had the potential to allow for a reduction of between 50 and 80 megawatts, depending on the season and time of the day.
 

Webb said City Power had in place a power purchase agreement with Kelvin Power, which would kick in when demand exceeds generation capacity. However, Webb said this was a costly option as the unit price of Kelvin Power was higher than Eskom’s Megaflex tariff.
 

City Power has also established partnerships with several large companies with installed generation plants. The companies can, in times of need or when the system is under pressure, be contracted to alleviate generation capacity challenges.

To reduce the overall demand on the grid, City Power has to date rolled out more than 60 000 solar water geysers in different areas across the city.
 

“Since the inception of these rollouts in 2012, we have seen a reduction in evening peak demand of six megawatts,” he said.

City Power is also installing smart meters, which enable it to remotely switch off domestic appliances such as pool pumps when load demand on the network becomes too high.
 

The entity has also introduced residential time of use tariff incentives aimed at reducing consumption during peak periods.