George Herald | Update: Geysers switched off

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Update: Geysers switched off
09:00 (GMT+2), Sun, 19 August 2012

GEORGE NEWS - The George Municipality saves R3-million per year on its Eskom account by employing the geyser ripple control system, says Kevin Grünewald, director of Electrotechnical Services.

He reacted to an article in last week's George Herald which conveyed residents' complaints about cold water at uncomfortable hours of the day.

"Ripple control enables us to shift the usage of geysers to the periods of the day when electricity is cheaper, which enables the municipality to balance its books. In addition, together with the many other cities and towns in South Africa that have the system, we help Eskom to manage the country's energy demand. Without the system we probably would have had load shedding by now.

"It is unfortunate that it sometimes happens that someone is without hot water, but rather a little cold water than load shedding. We actually don't have a choice," said Grünewald.

A municipality pays Eskom for a certain maximum electricity demand and it has to remain within that limit to avoid paying penalties. Ripple control also helps a town to remain within this limit. As a town/city grows, it can apply for a higher maximum, as George has had to do often in recent times.

In winter, the municipality pays a steep tariff of more than R2 per kW during peak hours. The ripple control system switches off the town's geysers automatically from a control centre during these periods. That is from 08:00 to 10:00, 18:00 to 20:00 and 21:30 and 22:00 on weekdays as well as from 10:00 to 12:00 and 18:00 to 20:00 on Saturdays.

During winter it may happen that the system remains off outside of these periods because of cold weather conditions and increased energy usage.

Municipality pays
The ripple control device is fitted to a building's electricity box at the municipality's cost. This cost is covered in about two years of usage. In the case of a new house being built, the device is installed in cooperation with the electrical contractor and is sealed, like the pre-paid meter.

Grünewald warned that a person can be fined if they refuse to be linked to ripple control. "An audit of all geysers was done a few years ago to determine if there are any that were not linked up."

It there are geysers in a certain area that are not linked, the control centre will pick it up and in such a case an audit will be done in that area.

The concern of a reader that his geyser can be damaged by the regular switching on and off was quelled by local plumber Louis Fourie of Wilson Plumbers who said that cannot happen. He confirmed that they often receive callouts for "faulty" geysers, only to find out that the geyser is off because of ripple control.

Residents of Oudtshoorn were caught off guard when large areas of the town were without power for more than five hours on Tuesday last week because the town's usage exceeded its maximum demand of 32 000kW. It is suspected that the freezing weather caused a spike in consumption.

Read last week's article here.

ARTICLE: ALIDA DE BEER, GEORGE HERALD JOURNALIST


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Your Comments...


GeorgeHeraldEditor says:	20/08/2012 07:58:02
Dear JAYKAY. We have sent your query to journalist, Alida de Beer to follow up with the municipality. Kind regards, Ilse Schoonraad, editor

JAYKAY says:	19/08/2012 17:17:19
Why such stupid time slots to switch of our geysers???We that work till about 5 or 6 in the afternoon struggle with warm water and have to sometimes boil water to go bath because the water dont even get warm if u want to take a bath at 6:30,or you must wait till after 8 for the geysers to be switched on and still wait for the water to get warm.It just doesnt make sense at all.''Switch geysers off when most of the people are at work,and even a few hours while we are all sleeping.''