While no one expects the State of the Nation Address in February to shoot any lights out, we certainly can expect a number of electrifying election season promises following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s annual address in Parliament.
You can bet that most politicians will run a concerted public campaign around the theme of load shedding, but while the politicians use power blackouts for political point-scoring, I would rather that the citizens on the ground use this opportunity to reflect on the fact that we can call on the ruling political party and national government to implement immediate, smart tech solutions to decrease the rate of load shedding on our homes and businesses this year.
According to the latest data sets from the Outlier, in 2023 South Africans were forced to endure the highest degree of load shedding on record to date. In 2022, we saw 205/365 days of load shedding. While glaring, this pales in comparison to 2023 with daily blackouts across 335 days, comprising mostly stage 3 to 6. This indicates a shocking 73% increase in power cuts year on year.
Smart geyser devices offer our beleaguered power utility a means to decrease the load on Eskom by providing a simple, effective and quick solution to lower the degree of load shedding at a national level.
Based on the data drawn from a recent study of 6 809 smart geyser devices across South Africa, it was possible to confirm that the average geyser energy usage for 6 346 geysers with a set-point temperature of 51-70°C was 0.492kWh.
By modelling this data against a study of 463 electric geysers with a modified set-point temperature of 50°C, we can confirm that the average geyser energy usage was lower, at 0.357kWh. This study illustrated a significant degree of savings (0.135kWh) on geyser energy usage – achieved simply by reducing their set-point temperature to just 50°C.
If one applies the saving of 0.135kWh to more than 7 million electric geysers already in use across the country, we could secure total energy savings of around 942 000 kWh – roughly equivalent to one stage of load shedding (1000MWh).
* Mark Allewell, Sensor Networks CEO .
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
Do you have something on your mind; or want to comment on the big stories of the day? We would love to hear from you. Please send your letters to [email protected].
All letters to be considered for publication, must contain full names, addresses and contact details (not for publication)