Companies target air-cons to reduce energy consumption

Units fitted with devices so they may be turned off remotely

Two Nelson Mandela Bay vehicle manufactures have installed devices that can automatically switch off air-conditioners remotely at their plants — reducing the burden on the city’s power grid.

The programme is spearheaded by the Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber with the ripple units installed at VWSA and Isuzu SA.

Chamber CEO Nomkhita Mona said its electricity task team had been testing the ripple control systems at VWSA and Isuzu SA while Borbet SA had recently signed up.

“This has had positive results in terms of reducing the load on the power grid,” Mona said.

She said the city’s manufacturing sector was shielded from stage one to four loadshedding but still had a part to play.

“This sector directly employs about 4,000 people in our metropolitan area and thousands more indirectly.

“Any disruptions to this sector would have dire consequences for our economy, across all downstream sectors.

“This in turn would have a knock-on impact on the retail and commercial sectors, leading to consumer spending being radically reduced,” she said.

She said 30 high-energy using companies had also voluntarily signed up to shed between 6-8% of their power.

“However, we need to increase this to more than 100 businesses.

“If we do this, we could significantly reduce the current load-shedding burden across the entire city for all sectors of business, as well as for residential areas,” she said.

Mona encouraged businesses to seek independent power supply solutions to secure their long-term reliability.

VWSA spokesperson Andile Dlamini said the vehicle manufacturer had installed about 200 ripple units in airconditioners at its Uitenhage plant to reduce energy consumption.

“We started the process about six months ago with 200 ripple units.

“There’s plans to install more by the end of the year,” he said.

“Everyone understands that at certain points in the day we will loadshed air-conditioners as this is one of the ways for us to reduce our consumption,” Dlamini said.

Isuzu Motors SA spokesperson Denise van Huyssteen said the company had voluntarily installed the ripple control system.

“This has resulted in a reduction of between 6-8% of our total power consumption levels.

“Furthermore, we are actively urging our suppliers to follow a similar approach so as to help the city as a whole to reduce its electricity usage.

“To mitigate the risks associated with load-shedding we are investigating options to keep our manufacturing plant running during emergency situations.

“We are also looking at the possibility of installing solar power as an alternative energygeneration source for portions of our operations,” Van Huyssteen said.

Borbet MD Brenton van Vuuren said the alloy wheels manufacturer was in the process of installing 55 ripple units.