South African Utility Asks Customers to Reduce Power Consumption
Eskom is making progress in its efforts to do necessary maintenance on the power system during the current summer season, but wishes to remind South Africans that the power system is tight and will continue to be so for at least the next two years. Eskom is resolved to prevent load shedding, but we will need the partnership and support of all South Africans to keep the lights on.
For this week, and the weeks that follow, it will be a challenge to balance supply and demand due to a number of factors. We have entered our maintenance season. As announced on 29 October 2011, Unit 2 of Koeberg will be out of service for a few weeks for repairs to the generator. The current hot weather conditions have also had an impact on supply, impairing the efficiency of some of Eskom’s dry-cooled power stations, and have caused increased demand as customers have increased their use of air-conditioning.
We are keeping the lights on by implementing supply-side initiatives, the assistance from some of our key customers and active demand side management. But we need the co-operation of all South Africans, and request all electricity users to reduce their electricity usage during this difficult period.
We would like to remind customers that summer is just as challenging as winter, if not more so, and we appeal to all consumers to use electricity sparingly and use electrical equipment such as air-conditioning, geysers and swimming pool pumps as efficiently as possible in order to reduce demand for electricity,” says Brian Dames, Eskom’s Chief Executive. We suggest that pumps and geysers be switched off during the peak periods of 17:00 to 21:00 to assist in reducing demand.
Eskom is doing everything to manage the tight system. We will provide updates on Power Alert on SABC 1, 2, 3 and Etv between 17:30 and 21:00. We will keep customers informed on a regular basis regarding the state of the system.
Tags: demand side management, difficult period, electrical equipment, electricity usage, eskom, new3
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