The National Rationalised Specifications (NRS) Association of South Africa is in the final stages of revising South Africa’s load-shedding guidelines, bringing specifics for load shedding beyond stage 8 closer to reality. The NRS is a voluntary forum of organisations formed to collaborate and develop voluntary industry specifications to standardise equipment specifications across the South African Electricity Supply Industry.
The group is currently in the process of revising edition two of the code, which will see the current load-shedding stages expanded. The NRS is reportedly ready to submit the modified code to Nersa in the coming days. The goal is to protect the national grid and avoid a total blackout scenario, and load shedding is an excellent tool to do this.
The NRS 048-9 Code of Practice is primarily an electricity utility-driven and executed document that derives its mandate and authority once approved by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa). When the first edition of the NRS048-9 code was established in 2010, load shedding stages were capped at Stage 4 – representing 25% of the base load – requiring utilities to “find” electricity load under emergency conditions. The NRS 048-9 Work Group has proposed extending the load shedding stages to manage load shedding to Stage 8 (Edition 2). This would provide for 16 load-shedding stages, with half the electricity load shed and the other half waiting to be cleared.
The NRS stressed that the need to plan for load shedding beyond Stage 8 is primarily a proactive measure to enable the various electricity utilities, especially Eskom, to be in a state of readiness and preparedness to respond in the event of the need to – but hopefully not – institute load shedding beyond Stage 8 levels.
The Association believes that NCC and SO have managed load shedding well, often under challenging circumstances, to keep as many lights on as possible. However, proactive planning and preparation for load shedding at elevated stages will prevent errors from occurring.
