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Galooli's Load Shedding/Reduction Solution

Galooli's Load Shedding/Reduction Solution

Galooli's Load Shedding/Reduction Solution Background

In recent years, South Africa has faced an ongoing electricity supply crisis, resulting in the implementation of controlled power outages as a method of equitably distributing available electricity to all customers of Eskom, South Africa’s national electricity provider.

Two structured outage mechanisms are commonly used:

  • Load Shedding

  • Load Reduction

Both mechanisms are initiated by the national electricity provider and represent planned grid outages. However, they differ in their data source and management method within the Galooli system.

Essential Principles

Load Shedding & Load Reduction Stages
Eskom declares stages ranging from 1 to 16. A higher stage represents a more severe power shortage and more frequent outages. Municipalities may override the national stage and declare a different stage locally.

Geographical Division
The country is divided into suburbs. Each suburb has a predefined outage schedule per stage.

Frequency and Duration
Each suburb may experience up to three daily outages, typically lasting between 1 and 4.5 hours.

Galooli’s Solution Overview

Galooli provides a comprehensive solution that integrates:

  • Planned outage schedule ingestion

  • Grid availability analysis

  • Battery autonomy analysis and notifications

  • Fuel autonomy analysis and notifications

  • Automated generator control

The system supports both Load Shedding and Load Reduction in a unified operational logic.

Load Shedding/Reduction – Data Source and Integration Logic

Load Shedding – API-Based Integration

Load Shedding is automatically integrated into the system via third-party API.

The system:

  • Tracks the national stage (updated hourly)

  • Retrieves suburb schedules (updated every 24 hours)

  • Stores suburb ID per unit based on latitude and longitude

  • Supports municipal stage overrides

  • Displays upcoming outages based on declared stages

A dedicated “Load Shedding” group exists at:

My Units → Choose a unit → Information Tab → Additional Info → Information → Category: Load Shedding → Section: Load Shedding- General/Schedule

Each unit includes:

  • Suburb ID

  • Stage Municipality

  • API Status

  • Scheduled outage windows - Highlights the next anticipated outages based on declared stages and the suburb weekly schedule. In the absence of any relevant declaration by Eskom or no outages expected during the declared stages, these fields will remain empty.

    For example, on 18/10, there is no load shedding from 00:00 to 16:00, but stage 2 is expected from 18/10 16:00 to 19/10 05:00. According to the suburb's schedule for stage 2, an outage is anticipated from 18/10 22:00 to 19/10 00:30. In this case, the load shedding fields will display only this particular outage, as there are no other planned outages before 19/10 at 05:00 and no declarations for the subsequent stage.

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Organizational Information → Load Shedding → To store the real-time status of the national stage and the municipalities stages, a new "Load Shedding" group has been added to the Organizational Information.

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Load Reduction – Monthly File-Based Integration

Load Reduction is managed manually at the organization level.

It is available under:

My Units → Choose a unit → Information Tab → Additional Info → Information → Category: Load Reduction → Section: Load Reduction - General/Schedule

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Management Logic

  1. The organization prepares a structured monthly file including:

    • OrgId (Organization ID)

    • Month and Year

    • Region

    • Block

    • Daily outage time ranges

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  1. Before submission:

    • The relevant Region and Block must be defined under My Units.

  2. The user opens a ticket with Galooli Support to receive the designated submission email address.

  3. The file is submitted via email.

Validation Process

After submission, the system performs full validation on:

  • File format correctness

  • Valid day values matching the selected month

  • Valid Region and Block values

  • Valid time format

Additional rules:

  • Files may be uploaded up to two years forward from the current date.

  • Uploading past months is not allowed.

  • When uploading the current month:

    • Past days will not be updated.

    • Validation may succeed, but past dates remain unchanged.

Notification Process

At the end of validation:

If successful

  • A confirmation email is sent.

  • Units are updated automatically according to Region and Block.

  • Load Reduction times are displayed as Read Only in the unit.

If failed

  • A “Load Reduction Update Failure” email is sent.

  • The email includes:

    • Exact column

    • Exact row

    • Precise error description

This allows accurate correction of the file.

Display Behavior and Priority Logic

Both Load Shedding and Load Reduction follow identical runtime logic.

Activation Rule

A planned outage is displayed as Active only when the system detects an actual grid failure at the site.

This prevents false indication of outages when grid power is still available.

Overlap Rule

If Load Shedding and Load Reduction windows overlap:

Load Shedding takes display priority.

Load Shedding will be displayed before Load Reduction.

Live Display Behavior

The unit’s live display (Panorama / Mobile App) will show:

  • The current stage if a planned outage is active

  • The start time of the next planned outage

  • “No Upcoming Load Shedding” if no outage is expected

The Grid Fail digital alarm indicates whether the outage is schedule-based.

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Grid Availability Analysis

Monitoring grid availability in the presence of planned outages is critical for accurate KPI reporting and alarm suppression.

The following fields support both Load Shedding and Load Reduction:

Is Planned Grid Fail

A digital field indicating whether the current grid failure matches a planned outage window.

  • Updated when the unit transmits data.

  • If the unit is disconnected, the field may not update.

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Avail. Time Grid – Planned Failures Included

A summary field that considers planned outages as available time.

Grid is considered available when:

  • Grid Available = true
    OR

  • Is Planned Grid Fail = true

This ensures that planned outages do not negatively impact availability KPIs.

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NOC Alarm – Mains Failure

The Mains Failure alarm will trigger only when:

  • Grid Fail = true
    AND

  • Is Planned Grid Fail = false

Planned outages do not generate NOC alarms.

Battery Autonomy Analysis and Notifications

Battery autonomy logic applies only to smart batteries (LIB).

The system calculates discharge time based on:

  • Battery capacity

  • State of Charge (SOC)

  • State of Health

  • Nominal voltage

  • Real-time consumption

This is compared to planned outage duration.

Both Load Shedding and Load Reduction schedules are used in this logic.

Live Battery Autonomy Script

Executed every 5–10 minutes.

Conditions:

  • Unit connected

  • Active planned outage

  • Smart batteries configured

  • Required parameters available

  • No duplicate notification during same window

If predicted autonomy falls below remaining outage time (twice consecutively), a notification is sent.

Solar contribution status is included in the message.

Predicted Battery Autonomy Script

Executed once daily.

Evaluates:

  • Upcoming planned outage

  • Maximum possible SOC

  • Expected discharge time

  • Average consumption during similar hours last week

If autonomy is insufficient, notification is triggered.

Fuel Autonomy Notifications and Analysis

If generators serve as primary backup, the system estimates runtime based on:

  • Real-time fuel level

  • Generator load-based consumption rate

The script runs once daily.

If predicted autonomy is shorter than outage duration, a notification is sent.

This applies to both Load Shedding and Load Reduction.

Automated Generator Control

Galooli supports automatic generator start before planned outages.

The automation:

  • Runs every 2 minutes

  • Switches generator to manual mode

  • Sends start command X minutes before outage

  • Switches back to auto mode Y minutes after outage begins

  • Retries commands up to configurable limit (default: 5)

Supports both outage mechanisms.

Required Settings Summary

For Load Shedding

  • Third-party API integration required

  • Unit location (latitude & longitude) required

For Load Reduction

  • Monthly file upload required

  • Region and Block must be defined in units

  • No API required

For Battery Autonomy

  • Smart batteries (LIB)

  • Battery capacity defined

  • Site consumption monitored

For Fuel Autonomy

  • Fuel tank configured

  • Generator KVA recommended for accurate estimation