Economist warns of a rebellion over high electricity price increases in South Africa

I was stressing because us eskom direct customers have just had our increase and April was a terrible solar month in Johazardsburg. I'd worked out my bill to the tee - R4318.88. Ouch! But the invoice I received?

R12 596.43

Now I have to try and argue this schit with someone who is no doubt fluent only in pay-now-talk-later.

Hell, yes. Bring on the rebellion! :mad::mad::mad:
 
Flanders said:
I was stressing because us eskom direct customers have just had our increase and April was a terrible solar month in Johazardsburg. I'd worked out my bill to the tee - R4318.88. Ouch! But the invoice I received?

R12 596.43

Now I have to try and argue this schit with someone who is no doubt fluent only in pay-now-talk-later.

Hell, yes. Bring on the rebellion! :mad::mad::mad:
Click to expand...
Don't waste your time, just pay R4318.88. You can rebel with your wallet.
 
FiestaST said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2055975195790246379
Click to expand...
Renewables driving up the costs at Eskom?

So not the mismanagement?

Not the corruption?

Not the blatant incompetence and political interference resulting in no power station construction, then when they finally did decide to build them, doubling and even tripling budgets and timelines?

None of these. It's the renewables to blame?

The 100MW wind farms relative to Eskom's massive coal infrastructure... this is the problem?????????????
 
Flanders said:
I was stressing because us eskom direct customers have just had our increase and April was a terrible solar month in Johazardsburg. I'd worked out my bill to the tee - R4318.88. Ouch! But the invoice I received?

R12 596.43

Now I have to try and argue this schit with someone who is no doubt fluent only in pay-now-talk-later.

Hell, yes. Bring on the rebellion! :mad::mad::mad:
Click to expand...
So glad I'm on prepaid.
 
porchrat said:
So glad I'm on prepaid.
Click to expand...

I always do manual readings of my meter to avoid exactly this type of thing with their ridiculous estimates. They always send me acknowledgement of receipt with ref number but no meter figure linked to ref number. What's been happening is for whatever reason, they've been using some arbitrary figures shown on the invoices which don't correspond to the ones I've submitted. I've not questioned it 'til now as the consumption always generally lines up. But now, they've suddenly gone from their figures to my actual last figure which means over 3000kWh of consumption which is total BS as I keep a close eye on this stuff.

It makes me rage spending so much time and effort with solar etc. to keep costs down and then they just go and lump me with an R8000+ excess bill.
 
“Since 2007, electricity prices have increased by about 1,000%, and I think we have now reached the breaking point,” he told the Sunday Times.
Click to expand...
Really? I thought we already passed this point many moons ago when like... South Africa started breaking.
 
Johnatan56 said:
All of it does need to change to fixed, stuff like the grid don't change their price based on usage and should be billed as such.

The issue is that the unit price has it baked in, so they just increase both instead of lowering per unit price to just be power delivered.

Also have the issue that the price tiring system based on usage doesn't make that much sense as costs are moving from fixed power generation, where time of day didn't really make that much difference per kWh produced, just had to flatten peak, to a system where more of the cost will become variable depending on weather where prices could be way below what they are now and you'd like to incentivize that people use power then.
Click to expand...
Also not R500+ like Eskom and munis want to charge though. They need to come up with realistic figures for the fixed cost and the variable part.
 
Swa said:
Also not R500+ like Eskom and munis want to charge though. They need to come up with realistic figures for the fixed cost and the variable part.
Click to expand...
It should end up like 50% of a normal home's fees should be fixed fee as there is a lot of grid investment that needs to happen, with it being set as x amounts for y reason for z years. Having it tied to a specific project/plan makes these fees more accountable if something doesn't happen.

Probably will not happen like that anyways.
 
Johnatan56 said:
It should end up like 50% of a normal home's fees should be fixed fee as there is a lot of grid investment that needs to happen, with it being set as x amounts for y reason for z years. Having it tied to a specific project/plan makes these fees more accountable if something doesn't happen.

Probably will not happen like that anyways.
Click to expand...
I don't agree with this. Realistically the only fixed infrastructure is from your house to the street pole. Even the transformer is dependant on capacity used and not the number of people using it so should be funded out of the tariff. Fixed fees more than a fraction of the cost is more like subsidisation. We used to be told that the R40 fee was to read the meter and take care of the financing. With that falling away prepaid should hardly have any fees.
 
Swa said:
I don't agree with this. Realistically the only fixed infrastructure is from your house to the street pole. Even the transformer is dependant on capacity used and not the number of people using it so should be funded out of the tariff. Fixed fees more than a fraction of the cost is more like subsidisation. We used to be told that the R40 fee was to read the meter and take care of the financing. With that falling away prepaid should hardly have any fees.
Click to expand...
The cable in the street hasn't been touched in 50 years. I say that's worth R100 per month.
 
Swa said:
I don't agree with this. Realistically the only fixed infrastructure is from your house to the street pole. Even the transformer is dependant on capacity used and not the number of people using it so should be funded out of the tariff. Fixed fees more than a fraction of the cost is more like subsidisation. We used to be told that the R40 fee was to read the meter and take care of the financing. With that falling away prepaid should hardly have any fees.
Click to expand...
Based on your argument, let's say that you have a town of 10 people, and all 10 people decide they only pay that piece, who pays for the infrastructure to the town?

Let's say that the energy generation is in northern Cape and you're in another province, who pays for the infrastructure there? Whether you use 1kWh or 100kWh a month, it's still the same fee for that grid.

You can argue that if someone uses 1mWh, then they should be paying for the upgrades and stuff, and agreed, so you have a small amount on top of every kWh used, so home users are like R10/month or something small, while large players that need a lot of power pay more for the fixed connection, but also that kWh amount adds up for upgraded interconnects.
 
Johnatan56 said:
Based on your argument, let's say that you have a town of 10 people, and all 10 people decide they only pay that piece, who pays for the infrastructure to the town?

Let's say that the energy generation is in northern Cape and you're in another province, who pays for the infrastructure there? Whether you use 1kWh or 100kWh a month, it's still the same fee for that grid.

You can argue that if someone uses 1mWh, then they should be paying for the upgrades and stuff, and agreed, so you have a small amount on top of every kWh used, so home users are like R10/month or something small, while large players that need a lot of power pay more for the fixed connection, but also that kWh amount adds up for upgraded interconnects.
Click to expand...
Who paid to build the national grid and 40GW of generation in 20 years in the 60's-80's?
 
wingnut771 said:
Who paid to build the national grid and 40GW of generation in 20 years in the 60's-80's?
Click to expand...
The state, so via tax. Fixed fee is better for on-going, while state tax for the building of new is better as it's the a progressive tax.
Makes it all more transparent.
 
Johnatan56 said:
The state, so via tax. Fixed fee is better for on-going, while state tax for the building of new is better as it's the a progressive tax.
Makes it all more transparent.
Click to expand...
As long as we have cheapest power in the world even after building national grid and 40GW of gen.
 
wingnut771 said:
As long as we have cheapest power in the world even after building national grid and 40GW of gen.
Click to expand...
Tbh, South Africa still has the capabilities to have among the cheapest power in the world, it has some of the best solar and wind areas in the world.

I think though that in like 20-30 years power will be pretty cheap, will generally move to nearly everything fixed cost for home user and you pay for grid mostly as there will be a lot of excess power, which will back feed into stuff like steel/power intensive industries being cheaper, then cheaper to produce more etc., most of the cost will be grid / demand shaping.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X