If you live in Johannesburg and have been on City Power‘s load limiting program, you probably know the constant struggle to get things switched off as quickly as possible to avoid loadshedding.

Load limiting was implemented by the company to afford residents the opportunity to reduce their electricity usage before being subjected to loadshedding.

Residents were notified that they are above the 21 amps threshold during a loadshedding period by a 30 second interruption to their power supply. This happens repeatedly over a five minute period and if load isn’t reduced by the end of it, the household is cutoff until loadshedding ends.

But many residents felt that 30 seconds wasn’t enough time to effectively switch off as many electricity-intensive appliances as possible.

City Power took those complaints to heart, and decided to change the 30 second warning time to three minutes – with immediate effect.

“People were complaining that 30 seconds was not enough time for them to reduce their consumption, so we decided to extend the time,” explained City Power spokesman Hloni Motloung.

The load limiting schedule has also been adjusted, now occurring between 5.15pm and 6.45pm.

Residents will experience a break in power after the three-minute warning, and once a resident has been warned five times to reduce their load, they will be subjected to loadshedding.

[Source – Times Live, image – CC by 2.0/Brian J. Matis]