Beware: City of Cape Town New Electricity tariffs allocation

[morkhans]

I discovered on our latest common property account that as of 1 July CoCT migrated our electricity account into the "Small power users 1" tariff group. This group (conveniently for CoCT) incurs a R22.50 per day service charge. As per their rates schedule this category is for high consumption > 1000kWh/month users. Our usage is never more than 400kWh/month which should put us into "Small power users 2" which has a higher unit cost but no service charge. This move has more than doubled our electricity bill. In fact the service charge is more than the actual electricity usage.

I queried this with the call centre and was told this is the "policy" and that many people are complaining about the same thing (so do something about it!). I've sent a mail to have this corrected, but I'm not holding my breath.

Anyway, heads-up for anyone else with post-paid electricity to check their accounts closely.

http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/electricity/Elec tariffs 201415/Schedule of Consumptive Tariffs.pdf

 

[Ancalagon]

I remember hearing that the City of Cape Town had to increase the amounts that they charge because people had followed their advice and installed solar geysers.

 

[morkhans]

So it turns out this is an extortion attempt by the city because they don't have the resources to read the meters.

You have to convert to prepaid at your own cost to "qualify" for the small power users 2 tariff.

 

[akescpt]

Wonder how this affects eskom users. Need to check that bill.

 

[akescpt]

I discovered on our latest common property account that as of 1 July CoCT migrated our electricity account into the "Small power users 1" tariff group. This group (conveniently for CoCT) incurs a R22.50 per day service charge. As per their rates schedule this category is for high consumption > 1000kWh/month users. Our usage is never more than 400kWh/month which should put us into "Small power users 2" which has a higher unit cost but no service charge. This move has more than doubled our electricity bill. In fact the service charge is more than the actual electricity usage.

I queried this with the call centre and was told this is the "policy" and that many people are complaining about the same thing (so do something about it!). I've sent a mail to have this corrected, but I'm not holding my breath.

Anyway, heads-up for anyone else with post-paid electricity to check their accounts closely.

http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/electricity/Elec tariffs 201415/Schedule of Consumptive Tariffs.pdf

Getting invalid URL for the link.

 

[geezer]

Getting invalid URL for the link.

Link works for me.

 

[morkhans]

Link is valid, but webmasters who allow content with spaces in the name should be shot.

 

[skimread]

what area is CoCT? Does it include Northern Suburbs, Sunset, Milnerton and Blouberg?