Eskom to pay customers?
'We are doing this in order to avoid load shedding where we can' – Eskom.
Eskom recently stated that they are willing to reimburse large customers for switching their electricity off and generators on when requested.
The power house is currently in talks with the South African Property Association (SAPOA) to give the green light for the initiative.
Businesses that are not part of the association will not be excluded. According to Khulu Phasiwe from the Eskom media desk, “Nothing has been formalised yet but all parties are comfortable with the arrangement.”
The project actually was initiated by SAPOA. The plan is that Eskom call on large customers to switch of their electricity before the risk of load shedding arises in order to lessen the load on the national grid.
“In doing so, it will reduce the load on the grid. It might lessen the probability of load shedding on the whole.
“Right now, the targeted customers are malls with generators as they have enough power to sustain themselves over the time we require.”
How it will work is Eskom will call on malls to switch to using generators in case of a high probability of load shedding in a bid to avoid load shedding in total. These malls then will be compensated for switching to generators. They will be reimbursed at R3/kWh, which is the same amount that Eskom currently charges.
“We will come out and install a meter on your generator and thereafter will compensate you at about R3/kWh when you run it.
“We are doing this in order to avoid load shedding where we can or even to delay it. Hopefully we can come to a space where we will not even need to go into stage one or two of load shedding. We mean to target all large customers but are starting with malls,” Andrew Etzinger, Eskom’s spokesperson said.
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