Power Conservation Programme (PCP)
Overview
The Eskom PCP has been designed to achieve an overall national electricity saving of 10%. It is necessary for Eskom to deploy such aggressive Demand Management (DSM) actions because until recently the supply of electricity could not keep pace with the growing demand. The current economic softening has provided some temporary respite to this status quo.
The proposed PCP is divided into three sections of rules:
- Energy Conservation Scheme (ECS)
- Rights to Consume (RTC) trading rules
- Energy Growth Management (EGM) rules
ECS
Deals with how much electricity may be used by a customer and the penalties that will be applied in the event of excessive use. The date range for establishing the baseline of consumption is October 2006 and September 2007 and it is this period that will be used to determine the power allowances for users.
RTC
Customers that find it difficult – or cannot afford – to reduce their consumption may benefit from participation in the RTC trading scheme. The RTC trading rules allowed those customers which reduced electricity usage below the conservation allocations, to sell their excess allocations to other companies.
EGM
These rules deal with new applications for electricity use as well as new projects and expansion at existing facilities.
The proposed savings that will be required of customers against the baseline period of October 2006 to September 2007 are:
- Mining & Agriculture: 08% reduced consumption
- Industrial: 10% reduced consumption
- Commercial & Residential: 20% reduced consumption
- Government & State-owned enterprise: 25% reduced consumption
Penalties
Failure to meet these savings (ie. exceeding monthly energy allocation) will result in punitive electricity tariffs for that portion of the customer's electrical energy consumption in excess of allocation.
Our current information in this respect is:
- Three applicable price bands for transgression
- Differentiation between users below and above 10MVA threshold
|
|
Control band |
Disincentive band |
Punitive band |
|
1st transgression |
R2,80/kWh |
R4,50/kWh |
R9,00/kWh |
|
Note 1: For customers <10 MVA, the control band is 0 - 2,5% above allocation |
An example calculation for a commercial customer based on the present ‘normal’ electrical energy price of about R0.50 / kWh:
1) Required saving per month: 20% below baseline (Oct 2006 to Sept 2007)
2) Actual use (kWh) in measured month: Same as the baseline period (ie 0% adjustment)
Energy bill in that month: approx 4.6x higher
Clearly there will be significant implications for all electricity users that do not bring their consumption into check – this will demand the concentration of all members of an organisation
** all numbers are indicative only and still subject to finalisation by Eskom and other utilities
