LOAD SHEDDING: SYSTEM EMERGENCY PROPOSALS OUT FOR COMMENT

LOAD SHEDDING: SYSTEM EMERGENCY PROPOSALS OUT FOR COMMENT

• 19 August 2023
• Minerals & Energy
• SA Legal Academy

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) has called for input by 22 September 2023 on proposals for revising the 2017 quality of electricity supply code of practice on load reduction, system restoration, and critical and essential load requirements under system emergencies.

The documents concerned have featured in various media articles since 12 August 2023 but have yet to be gazetted.

‘Several changes and enhancements’ are proposed in what will eventually become the code’s third edition. They include:

• consolidating load shedding stages into ‘a single system from stage 1 to 16’ binding on ‘all licensees’ except those ‘able to explain to NERSA … how their specific system still adheres to the (code’s) principles’
• clarifying methods for setting baselines for an area’s heaviest energy users (known as curtailment customers)
• ‘increased control of how load shedding and load curtailment are determined and carried out, providing more stability to the network and more certainty to curtailment customers’
• allowing curtailment customers to ‘reduce by 10 % per stage (2 stages of load shedding), up to stage 10, 50 % of their load, or to go to essential loads, depending on their own capacity, rather than being forced to essential loads after Stage 4’
• general and real-time compliance and reporting requirements, and
• guidance on implementing smart metering ‘as a technology platform for reducing the impact of load shedding on customers’.

Please click the links below for more information:

• consultation paper
• draft revised code of practice
• invitation

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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