Save energy or face costly consequences

GAYNOR NOYCE

JOHANNESBURG - Eskom has been given a big stick to punish its customers who do not save electricity.

Strict penalties are contained in the Energy Conservation Scheme (ECS), which is due for promulgation in Parliament at the end of the month in preparation for implementation in 2009.

Besides being informed about the government’s mandatory 10% power saving, captains of industry and all big users of power are largely in the dark about the crippling penalties they will soon be facing.

The current proposals have an enormous price impact on all South Africans and pose huge challenges on Eskom and the Department of Minerals and Energy to implement them.

“The real challenge is how to solve the power crisis and get users to save without penalising the productive users of electricity,” said Chris Yelland, managing director of EE Publishers.

“Voluntary savings haven’t curbed the country’s shrinking reserve margin for electricity which is 50% less than it should be.”

Yelland, who has studied the ECS, fears that as the proposal stands it could trigger a backlash.

He has also sounded the alarm that Eskom and the DME have failed to properly consult, educate and tell the public what to expect regarding the ECS.

Yelland said at a symposium attended by 150 building owners and big energy users in Johannesburg last week that only 20 knew about the ECS and not one knew its specifics.

The mining industry must save 8%, industry 10%, commercial users 20%, residential users 20% and government 25% of their electricity, compared to their baseline usage, which is gauged from calculating one’s average power use between October 2006 and September 2007.

Proposed penalties are placed in three price bands – the control band, disincentive band and a so-called punitive band.

The more one fails to save, the more a user will be punished, on an increasing scale, depending on the percentage of overuse or non-saving. – gaynorn@citizen.co.za