ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Delving into SA’s residential power use Amid ongoing electricity supply concerns in South Africa, the results of a groundbreaking study on residential energy use have been released.
T
he South African National Energy Development Institute (Sanedi) – together with the Depar tment of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) and the University of Cape Town (UCT) – has completed a study to assess the impact of energy-efficient appliances on electrical energy consumption in the residential sector in South Africa, while looking at possible future energy impacts for the sector. The global residential sector consumes one fifth of the world’s energy, according to the International Energy Agency. During peak periods in South Africa, the residential sector can account for up to 35% of national electricity demand. Richard Larmour, research officer: Advanced Machines & Energy Systems Research Group at UCT’s Department of Electrical Engineering, explains that it was impor tant to embark
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on this study seeing as the sector remains relatively understudied. “There is an enormous amount that still needs to be learnt about how electricity is consumed by appliances in different income groups. “It is also important to identify the areas in the sector that have achieved the greatest savings and those that still have savings potential. In par ticular, there was a need to quantify the electricity savings that have resulted from the South African appliance Standards & Labelling (S&L) programme over the past five years, as well as what savings may be expected moving into the future,” Larmour explains.
Ensuring current data Theo Covar y, PhD – an energy efficiency expert contracted by Sanedi – agrees, saying that,
to his knowledge, the last detailed study on the residential sector was done by Eskom in the 1990s. “Much has changed since then – politically, economically and technologically. It is important to understand the household sector market as it is a high-growth one, in contrast to other sectors that dominated in the past such as mining. The number of households grows ever y year, with many more electricity applications – i.e. the number of TVs, laptops, phones, appliance penetration, etc. and products of the future, such as electric cars.” Covar y asser ts that sector sur veys like these should be done ever y two to three years. The data can be used to: inform national policy (in this instance, how the S&L programme is per forming); report on climate change (Depar tment of Forestr y, Fisheries and the Environment); assist Eskom and
