Load shedding legislation

The DME has released the proposed amendments to the Electricity Regulations Act 2006. It makes for some interesting reading, but here is what it boils down to.

The "licensees" (the people you buy your electricity from – e.g. municipalities) must ensure the following,

1. Incandescent lights must be replaced with energy efficient ones.
2. Unoccupied buildings' lights must be turned off.
3. No street lights should be on during the day.
4. New dwellings with a value over R750000 must include solar geysers.
5. Dwellings larger than 300m² must include solar gesyers.
6. All new installations must have a geyser blanket.
7. Office blocks, hospitals, hotels, resorts, and shopping complexes must incorporate solar water heating by 2010.
8. All geysers must be able to be turned off remotely by 2010.
9. All heating, ventilation and cooling systems (HVAC) must be able to be turned off remotely by 2010.
10. Swimming pool pumps and heating must be able to be turned off remotely (interestingly no date is set for this).
11. Street lights must be fitted with energy efficient bulbs.
12. Time use tariffs for customers who consume more than 500kWh a month, before 2010.

You can submit comments on the regulations up until 25 February 2008.

There are two things which stand out for me:

1. HVAC that can be turned off remotely.

The interesting thing with this is that it will be very noticeable to the end user. Turning off a geyser has little (no) effect on the end user. If your air conditioner suddenly turns off you are going to notice. The other thing is that turning a motor (the compressor) on and off is quite different to turning a resistor (geyser element) on and off. I wonder what the impact of this will be on the lifetime of the equipment?


2. Time use tariffs for customers using more then 500kWh/month.

There are many households using more than this, and certainly just about every business is going to be affected by this. We will have to think more carefully about when we use energy. Business is probably going to take the biggest knock from this, as it eats straight into your bottom line.

Other than that it just looks like we should all start solar geyser companies ;)