The City of Tshwane's R78-million plan to phase out conventional postpaid electricity meters

mylesillidge

mylesillidge

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South Africa's capital has big prepaid meter plans

The City of Tshwane has announced an R78-million phase-out of conventional postpaid electricity meters in favour of smart prepaid metering.

The metro said the hefty investment was aimed at curbing electricity losses, securing municipal revenue through tamper-proof systems, and providing residents with deposit-free electricity.
 
Would be nice if the metro would also consider implementing a proper solar excess buyback strategy.
 
I thought they wanted us all on postpaid after the big prepaid push? Oh wait, that's just the people with solar.
 
wingnut771 said:
They don't know what they want as they are all headless chickens.
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They want everyone at their mercy, which is something slowly slipping from their grasp. For would-be non payers and those drawing all their power from the grid, prepaid suits them best. Solar users they want to control by having a record of their existence in order to pool them into a unique scheme where they will dream up a suitable punishment for those daring to generate their own power - basically a tariff solely made up of even more extortionate fixed charges and likely nonsensical TOU restrictions. For the latter to work they just need enough compliance with registration.
 
Flanders said:
They want everyone at their mercy, which is something slowly slipping from their grasp. For would-be non payers and those drawing all their power from the grid, prepaid suits them best. Solar users they want to control by having a record of their existence in order to pool them into a unique scheme where they will dream up a suitable punishment for those daring to generate their own power - basically a tariff solely made up of even more extortionate fixed charges and likely nonsensical TOU restrictions. For the latter to work they just need enough compliance with registration.
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How is putting solar people onto prepaid making them "at their mercy"?

This will also melt your brain but there are also no line fees on prepaid and post paid in pretoria so this is all about not wanting solar to spin their spinny meters backwards during the day allowing the muni to sell free energy to their customers.

They would much rather buy expensive eskom energy for free as they dont pay them.
 
wingnut771 said:
How is putting solar people onto prepaid making them "at their mercy"?
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Oh no I meant they want solar users on postpaid. If they could effectively round up solar users then maybe they would prefer them to be on prepaid too but on a unique tariff where they'd be shafted extra good.
 
Flanders said:
Oh no I meant they want solar users on postpaid. If they could effectively round up solar users then maybe they would prefer them to be on prepaid too but on a unique tariff where they'd be shafted extra good.
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Why does the first sentence say this?
The City of Tshwane has announced an R78-million phase-out of conventional postpaid electricity meters in favour of smart prepaid metering.
Click to expand...
 
Slowestclock said:
CoJ, please do this...

Tired of paying post paid fees
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Pretoria dont charge post paid fees. Why can't jhb just stop charging fees like their neighbour. It would cost them nothing to implement and would be instant with no work required which is right down their alley.
 
wingnut771 said:
How is putting solar people onto prepaid making them "at their mercy"?

This will also melt your brain but there are also no line fees on prepaid and post paid in pretoria so this is all about not wanting solar to spin their spinny meters backwards during the day allowing the muni to sell free energy to their customers.

They would much rather buy expensive eskom energy for free as they dont pay them.
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Yeah, also some guys push back quite a bit into the grid and without the limits imposed it can cause issues for the infrastructure. I am sure in Durban its quite prevalent with the solar guys but maybe not enough to cause issues yet.
 
wingnut771 said:
Pretoria dont charge post paid fees. Why can't jhb just stop charging fees like their neighbour. It would cost them nothing to implement and would be instant with no work required which is right down their alley.
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And almost zero incentive to go off-grid after that.
 
wingnut771 said:
Why does the first sentence say this?
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If COT is doing this across the board then I'd say it's a good thing. I'm stuck on postpaid in JHB and I'd prefer to be on prepaid because it would mean I wouldn't get screwed every 5 mins by eskom's incompetent billing dept. (they charged me 8K on top of my true bill last month).
 
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