Prepaid electricity in the main, is quite a good concept to look into if you are still running a post paid system and are struggling with exorbitant monthly fees and costs. If you are controlling your energy spend with the post paid method, then this is in order however it can easily become a costly expense. Prepaid electricity too, are not without it’s errors and issues and below we will discuss some very common errors you will come across some time or the other with your prepaid electricity set-up:

Error Messages: 

1. SAD face – probably means it is just finger trouble in typing the token number – please retry
2. DDDD –  Duplicated token. The token has probably been entered already, causing this error. Please double check.
3. Error 30 – Technical error on your meter. To try and troubleshoot this error, please switch off your meter, as well as your electricity mains and give it a few minutes. Afterwards, turn back on your mains and meter back on and retry your token. If the error 30 persists, please contact your municipality and get a technician to come out and have a look at the meter.

Meter Blocked? – It does occur that a meter is blocked by a municipality’s credit control. This means that the municipality prevents your meter from making a prepaid purchase until the block is lifted. To have this lifted the client needs to sort this out with the municipality.

While we are on the subject, also important to note that any outstanding fees on your utility bill that is deemed to be in arrears, can be deducted from your prepaid electricity purchase. If this takes place, it is wise to contact the municipality to resolve this.

For more information please visit: https://straton.co.za/pre-paid/about/prepaid-meter-error-codes/

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Recently, we have been inundated with request about electricity tariffs. Mostly with regards to why certain some users are receiving less units for the same amount in rands than they have previously. For the purposes of budgeting, it would be helpful to know what it cost to run the various appliances in your household. The purpose of this blog is to go into a bit of detail into what exactly an electricity tariff is and how it is measured. We also provide you with a helpful tool to measure how much units you typically use, and this should help you with financial planning with regards to energy spend in your household.

How is electricity measured?

So, how is electricity measured? This is an important question to begin to understand how an electricity tariff works. Electricity power is measured in terms of units, called watts. Most applicances in a household requires well in excess of 1,000 watts in order to function properly, which is why we generally refer to electrical power as kilowatts. Each kilowatt representing 1,000 watts. So how is this calculated? If you take an example of a 100 watt ceiling fan, and use it for two hours a day for 30 days, you have used 100 watts of power for 60 hours.

This calculates as 100 watts x 60 hours = 6000 watt-hours of electrical energy. Or 6 kilowatt-hours (kWh) which is the measurement of electricity units.

What does it mean?

If we look at Eskom’s small customer tariffs (which is most households in South Africa), the electricity used is billed as an energy charge. This is calculated in cents per kilowatt. (c/kWh). Now, this charge (c/kWh) differs per municipality and also differs per household, depending on the tariff they are on. This is a set amount based or determined by how much electricity a house-hold uses. Those who consumes above 600kWh are charged higher tariffs (c/kWh) as those who use below 600 kWh. Remember kWh stands for Kilowatts per Hour, as calculated above

For more a deeper break-down into tariffs, click here

How do I calculate how much my appliances are costing me?

This is where it might become a bit tricky. How do I calculate how much an appliance is costs to operate? Well, once you know which tariff you are on, you need to multiply the amount of kWh a particular appliance uses by the energy rate (c/kWh) applicable to your tariff and divide by 100 to get to the Rand value. So, if we take the above example and use Eskom’s block 1 tariff for residential users, the energy charge is 153,90c/kWh (including VAT) The calculation would be as follows:

6kWh x 153,90c/kWh = 923.4/100= R9.23

So, as we can see in this example, it costs R9,23 to run a 100 watt ceiling fan, 2 hours a day for 30 days. City Power has a very nifty tool that can help you calculate this as well, see this link  for more.

As we know, this is getting costlier every year and it might be time to look at other, more eco-friendly solutions of powering your home.

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This is the case at the time of writing but there still remains the strong possibility that the stage level will be upgraded to stage two, and this could even be a possibility today and definitely going into the weekend. This despite Eskom CEO, Jabu Mabuza saying that load-shedding should cease by this weekend. The current load-shedding implementation has been blamed on boiler leaks at 6 different power generating units, although some of these units are now online. Mabuza went further on to stress the fact that some the current power generation fleet has an average age of 36 years.

Another factor that contributed to the rolling black out, was the failure of the conveyor belt feeding coal from Exxaro’s Grootegeluk mine to the Medupi power station in Lephalale, Limpopo. The conveyor belt, which transports an average of 4000 tons of coal to the Medupi plant, per hour, reportedly broke down on Saturday. Mabuza mentioned in the presser, that a huge contingent of expertise has been dispatched to the area and he expects the machinery to be up and running by next week, Wednesday.  Whether load-shedding will stay away this weekend or not, remains to be seen then..

Currently, coal is being transported to the Medupi powerplant by means of bulldozers. Eskom, also has had to make use of open cycle gas turbines to cater for the current electricity shortfall. The issue with this, and it was an issue back in March as well, is that diesel stocks are incredibly expensive and current stocks are running low. This also contributes to the load-shedding situation. Mabuza said that Eskom is using much less diesel that it has in the past. In the past financial year, Eskom burnt diesel worth R6bn to keep the lights on in South Africa – in  the year to date, it only used R500m.

Please ensure that you check your schedule to see how you are affected and remember to protect your appliances from power surge by switching them off at the wall sockets before load-shedding commences.

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The coveted African Power, Energy & Water Industry awards has been taken place for the past six years, during the African Utility Week and POWERGEN Africa conference and exhibition, in Cape Town. The prestigious African Power & Energy Elites Publication celebrates leadership and successful projects in the sector since 2016.

The two combined to host an award programme, known as the African Power & Energy Elites and offer even more benefits, recognition and exposure for the finalists and winners. This is apart from the high quality publication and glamorous awards evening. Some of the benefits available for finalists and winners includes access to, and speaking opportunities at leading energy events on the continent and a VIP tour of Cape Town and surrounds and an on-camera interview at the awards evening, amongst others.

In a collaborative effort, the African Power & Energy Elites and the African Power, Energy and Water Industry Awards will align with a single nomination and selection process across a set of complementary categories.

2020 project categories:

1. Leadership profile
2. Generation innovation and optimisation
3. Renewable energy generation innovation and optimisation
4. Rural Electrification
5. Transmission & Distribution
6. Smart Cities
7. Finance & Investment
8. Digital Transformation

The selected leaders and projects will automatically become nominees for the African Power, Energy and Water Awards set to take place on the 13th of May 2020.

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She does go on to explain why a positive economic outlook would have a negative impact on Eskom and it’s operations. It may seem like a very outlandish or absurd comment, but the explanation makes logical sense if you think it through. The main logical reason for this is that, the better the economy performs, the greater the demand becomes for energy.

This becomes an issue especially because energy availability in South Africa is about 11% below what it should be, currently sitting at 69%, a figure that should be sitting around 80%. This sentiment was echoed by Independent Energy thought leader CEO Mike Rossouw, who said the problems at Eskom can be attributed to completely wrong pricing policy.

Sharing his thoughts on this, he goes on to say that in the past, the current policy could be seen as suitable due to a smaller scale and less investment in new plants. However, presently Eskom can not generate the revenue needed to support investment into the new plants it is building, neither to support the scale of it’s operations.

He lamented that the focus on fixing Eskom was on addressing the symptoms, rather than the root cause of pricing policy.

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This outage is considered crucial in a bid to improve the reliability and security of the electricity supply in this area. The upgrade is expected to cause disruption between the hours of 6:00 to 18:00.

In a press release, the City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Energy and Climate Change, Councillor Phindile Maxiti had the following to say about this interruption,

‘Residents are reminded that the supply could be restored at any time and customers must treat all electrical installations as live for the full duration of the interruption.

‘The City apologises for any inconvenience caused and thanks residents for their cooperation and understanding during this period,’

For more information or any inquiries related to the planned electricity supply interruption, residents can contact the City’s Electricity Generation and Distribution Department’s all hours Technical Operations Centre on 0860 103 089.

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In the briefing, some very interesting admissions were made with Gordhan starting out the briefing with an apology for the current state of events at Eskom, and the recent prolonged load-shedding episode. He mentioned in this briefing that there currently, there is a technical review team doing work on investigating the various power plants. He sheds some more light on this, saying that the work is not complete but at least Eskom now has a greater understanding of the challenges they face.

The very interesting bit of his statement was when he made mention of the fact that if load-shedding is absolutely necessary this winter, it would only be implemented at stage 1, at least until the end of August.

Eskom has previously blamed ageing power plants and insufficient maintenance, among other things, for the spate of load shedding.

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