For municipalities and metros
Measured peak reduction from residential water heating, without capital outlay.
Electric water heating is the largest controllable residential load in South Africa. PowerSync shifts it out of the evening peak across an enrolled fleet, and measures what that shift delivers so the result can be verified rather than asserted.
Talk to us about your networkThe proposition
Four things that matter to you
No capital outlay
Equipment, fitting and the platform are funded against measured reduction. The municipality does not buy hardware up front.
Verified, not asserted
Each controller measures the circuit it controls. Reduction is reported against a stated baseline method, with the method named in the reporting, so your engineers can audit it.
Consent that survives scrutiny
Residents opt in, can override, and can leave. Every consent is versioned and recorded. That matters when a programme gets attention it did not ask for.
One location, one certificate
Work is confined to the distribution board. A registered person issues a certificate of compliance for every installation.
Measurement and verification
How the reduction is established
Every controller meters the circuit it controls
Reduction is not modelled from a population average. Each device reports the energy its own geyser circuit used, at a resolution that lets a window be reconstructed after the fact.
A control group, held out of events
A randomised fraction of the enrolled fleet is deliberately not controlled during each event. The difference between controlled and held-out groups is the estimate of reduction, and it is not sensitive to the weather or the day of the week in the way a before-and-after comparison is.
The baseline method is named in the report
Whichever method is used is stated in the reporting alongside the number, with the sample, the exclusions and the uncertainty. Your engineers can disagree with the method; they should not have to guess what it was.
Payload rebound is reported, not hidden
Load deferred into the hour after a window is part of the result. A programme that reports the reduction and omits the recovery is reporting half a number.
We publish no performance figures on this site. The programme is in pilot and we have no audited fleet result to quote. When there is one it will be published with its method and its sample, and not before. Any number you are shown by anyone in this market without a stated baseline method is a marketing number.
Where these programmes fail
The exposure sits with the municipality, so we close it
Participation is voluntary, and provably so
Residents opt in, can override at any time, and can leave without cost or explanation. Each consent is recorded with the version of the wording it was given against. A programme installed under compulsion without an override is a complaint waiting to be written up, and the complaint lands on the municipality.
The privacy position is published, not assumed
A POPIA section 18 notice, a registered Information Officer, a PAIA section 51 manual, and a stated lawful basis for each category of processing. Household data is not transferred to the municipality; aggregated results are.
Every installation carries a certificate
Work is confined to the distribution board and a registered person issues a certificate of compliance under SANS 10142-1 for each one. Installer identity, device serial and board photographs are recorded at the point of installation.
Nobody is left worse off than a dumb geyser
Loss of signal returns the geyser to ordinary heating. Loss of power behaves like any other appliance. The hot-water floor overrides the schedule. These are design rules, testable on a bench, not assurances.
Standards and statutes
What the programme is built against
| Area | Instrument |
|---|---|
| Electrical installation | SANS 10142-1 — certificate of compliance issued per installation by a registered person |
| Device safety | Automatic electrical controls for household use — the SANS 60730 family |
| Radio and network approval | ICASA type approval for the communications module |
| Data protection | Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013, with a published privacy notice and a registered Information Officer |
| Consumer protection | Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 and Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 |
Certification status for a specific device revision is stated in the tender response for that revision, with the certificate numbers, rather than asserted generally here.
Start with your peak, not our product.
Tell us the windows you are trying to relieve and the residential base on your network, and we will come back with what an enrolled fleet would have to look like to matter — including the case where it does not.