Abstract
M.Com. (Business Management)
The residential demand profile for electricity shows that this segment of the market has. a
great demand in the morning and early evening. Due to a shortage of generation capacity
during these peak consumption periods, different strategies are now needed to persuade
customers to use their electricity in the periods when there is not a great demand. One
way in which this can be achieved is to give the customers a time differentiated tariff i.e. a
time-of-use (TOU) tariff, whereby the customer will pay a high energy rate in the peak
periods, and lower energy rates in the off-peak and standard periods.
The overall goal of this study was to determine to what extent residential customers would
respond to such a tariff The study covered three consumption groups i.e. customers
using more than 1500 kWh per month, between 600 and 1000 kWh per month, and
between 300 and 600 kWh per month. All the customers taking part in the study were
direct Eskom customers.
Once the customers had agreed to participate in the study, they had TOU measuring
equipment installed in their homes, which measured their consumption according to the
time of day it was consumed.