The final draft technical specifications outlining how power-consumption and -allocation baselines should be calculated have been completed and are being prepared for publication, opening the way for the implementation of the much-discussed power conservation programme (PCP), probably initially involving the country's 300 largest electricity users.

The chairperson of the PCP task force within the National Electricity Response Team, Mike Rossouw, tells Engineering News Online that the baselines will provide consumption visibility, and are likely to emerge as the main power-management instrument for suppliers and customers alike.

The specification, which is being processed for South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) approval, could soon be converted into a formal national technical specification.

Once such approval is obtained, it will become mandatory for large Eskom customers, as well as some of the larger municipal customers, to register their baselines - this process will initially be confined to larger customers, owing to the fact the systems are not yet in place and it would, thus, be too unwieldy to apply across smaller businesses and households.

Rossouw believes that this grouping of customers will probably have to have registered their baselines within the next six months, following which the other elements of the PCP, such as incentives, disincentives and possibly even a trading scheme, could be implemented all dependent on government and circumstances.

"But the most important component of the PCP for now involves the establishing of baselines, which is proceeding," Rossouw explains, adding that there is already consensus among government, Eskom and large electricity consumers on the need for such a guideline.

"In fact, most of the large customers have already registered their baselines with Eskom, based on the same standards that the SABS will be requested to approve," he adds, noting that all new Eskom contracts stipulate that a baseline be determined.

To determine the final allocation, account is made of a company's consumption level for a specified 12-month period. The figure is then "normalised" to take account of nonrecurring events that may have influenced a company's power draw for the period.

The normalised baseline will be used, for example, to enable trading, improve supply forecasting and if required introduce penalty tariffs. It could also provide the basis for any mandatory cuts that might be proclaimed should South Africa's power supply system enter into another period of constraint, as was the case during the 2008 rolling blackouts.

"So, if South Africa runs into supply problems again, government will probably announce a unilateral target for reducing power by say 10% across the board. The question then will be, 10% of what? The answer will be these baselines, rather than some other arbitrary number," Rossouw explains.

Therefore, the baselines will be the main building block of many energy management programmes, including any mandatory conservation scheme that could eventually emerge.

Rossouw tells Engineering News Online that the conceptual work on the potential incentives, disincentives, as well as energy trading, has also been completed and has been submitted to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for its consideration.

However, he anticipates that Nersa will only finalise the composition of the PCP once it has completed its work on Eskom's application for increases of 35% a year for the three-year period from April 1, 2010, to March 31, 2013.