Electricity theft costs Eskom R15 million a day

Jan

Jan

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Illegal connections and electricity sales cost Eskom R15 million a day

Eskom lost R5.6 billion to illegal connections and other activities during the 2022/23 financial year, with electricity losses amounting to 13,396GWh.

This works out to roughly 37GWh or R15 million lost per day. The power utility said the figure of 13,396GWh also includes meter tampering, illegal electricity sales or vending, illegal network construction, illicit meter installations and material theft.
 
I visited a large factory that manufactures industrial fans in Bellville South early in 2023. Looking in the meter room, the 3-phase meter had been wired for bypass. The owner avoided my question about who did this.

Last month I went to the adjacent factory which has the same type of meter, but working. The manager there said he was aware of his neighbour's wiring work and had mentioned it to Eskom but nothing was done

These factories have R20k to R30k monthly bills. This is just one I know about
 
chrisc said:
I visited a large factory that manufactures industrial fans in Bellville South early in 2023. Looking in the meter room, the 3-phase meter had been wired for bypass. The owner avoided my question about who did this.

Last month I went to the adjacent factory which has the same type of meter, but working. The manager there said he was aware of his neighbour's wiring work and had mentioned it to Eskom but nothing was done

These factories have R20k to R30k monthly bills. This is just one I know about
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Why does the owner have to tell you who did it? It's none of your business.
 
RedViking said:
Why does the owner have to tell you who did it? It's none of your business.
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Depends
If he is an electrician working on those sites it is his business
In fact , if that is the case , he has a legal obligation to report the site for non compliance

But regardless. If people know of these things and turn a blind eye , they are just as culpable.
Same mindset as one of our other well known MyBB'ers who seems to think some laws arent really laws because people are poor

Novel approach to Load shedding
Maintain a public available list of suburbs and their % of illegal connections and payment rates
When load shedding is needed work down the list and loadshed those people untill the required value is met.
Guarentee you people who are "up to date" will sort out those who arent in those areas to get off teh list

That way you cut power to those who steal and do not pay and supply power to those who are paying.
If you stay in a suburb thatis on the top of the list and end up being loadshed for 99% of they year. tough. I can guarentee that in the suburb everyone knows who is illegally connected and condones it
 
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Major Boredom said:
Depends
If he is an electrician working on those sites it is his business
In fact , if that is the case , he has a legal obligation to report the site for non compliance

But regardless. If people know of these things and turn a blind eye , they are just as culpable.
Same mindset as one of our other well known MyBB'ers who seems to think some laws arent really laws because people are poor
Click to expand...
Then report it to the useless authorities. What are you gonna do. Arest the suspect with your MyBB Expert Member badge?

Major Boredom: Ek het hom! Ek het hom!

Chrisc: Mielie hom! Mielie hom!
 
Jan said:
Illegal connections and electricity sales cost Eskom R15 million a day

Eskom lost R5.6 billion to illegal connections and other activities during the 2022/23 financial year, with electricity losses amounting to 13,396GWh.

This works out to roughly 37GWh or R15 million lost per day. The power utility said the figure of 13,396GWh also includes meter tampering, illegal electricity sales or vending, illegal network construction, illicit meter installations and material theft.
Click to expand...
ESKOM never lost a single cent, they are passing the losses onto us to foot the bill each day.
 
Here is a novel idea - involve the police and remove the connections.
Go back every day and remove them.
Set up monitoring so that when someone tries to put the connections back you arrest them.
When people "protest" with criminal property destruction in mind, arrest them too.

Why are the police so useless.
 
Wait so those Facebook marketplace ads for cheap electricity are actually real?
 
mpdjhb said:
Here is a novel idea - involve the police and remove the connections.
Go back every day and remove them.
Set up monitoring so that when someone tries to put the connections back you arrest them.
When people "protest" with criminal property destruction in mind, arrest them too.

Why are the police so useless.
Click to expand...
Arrest those that are illegally connected, there they'll get the free board and lodging.
 
Layer Cake said:
Wait so those Facebook marketplace ads for cheap electricity are actually real?
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There's even door to door salesman that go around offering cost cutting services.
I was approached once by a guy offering to "fix" the water meter by adding a bypass pipe below the surface so that the meter still reads the water flow, but a a greatly reduced rate as the water would flow through the unrestricted parallel pipe.

Hard to spot unless the municipality looks at previous average readings etc
 
mpdjhb said:
Here is a novel idea - involve the police and remove the connections.
Go back every day and remove them.
Set up monitoring so that when someone tries to put the connections back you arrest them.
When people "protest" with criminal property destruction in mind, arrest them too.

Why are the police so useless.
Click to expand...
Just remove the main supply to that entire area untill the community cleans up their entire mess
 
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