The Eastern Cape town of Bedford is the latest area to become the focus of Eskom’s load-limiting project.

This comes after the successful implementation of the project in Adelaide, Eastern Cape.

Residents will not experience load shedding stages 1 to 4 but will rather be restricted in electricity consumption to 10 Amperes during scheduled load shedding periods.

An hour before the start of load shedding, customers in selected pilot areas will be prompted to reduce their consumption from 60 Amperes to 10 Amperes by sending a message to the Customer Interface Unit (CIU) of the smart meter. Customers will be notified by text message. If the customer load is still above 10 Amperes, the smart meter will automatically make two more attempts 30 seconds apart. After three failed attempts, the next reset will be in 30 minutes, Eskom says.

“Electricity load limiting through smart meters is being implemented to better balance the supply and demand of electricity on the grid,” says Nbulelo Yedwa, Eskom’s Cape Coastal Cluster General Manager.

Load limiting benefits customers in that they will still be able to use essential appliances. It also helps protect equipment from fatigue, faults and theft and vandalism.

Eskom has already established various load limiting projects throughout Gauteng.