Electricity up 20% in April?

xrapidx

xrapidx

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I was just reading in a news article that the electricity goes up by 20% in April - and now I can't find the damn article - anyone have links to the details? I'd like to buy a huge whack in bulk again.
 
I did the same thing before the price increase last year, now the question is, is there a limit to how much electricity you can buy at once?
 
CalmD said:
I did the same thing before the price increase last year, now the question is, is there a limit to how much electricity you can buy at once?
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Not that I am aware of. The only warning I was given was in regard to putting large amounts into the meter at once, because if it should fail later you could end up losing the electricity.
 
noxibox said:
Not that I am aware of. The only warning I was given was in regard to putting large amounts into the meter at once, because if it should fail later you could end up losing the electricity.
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Just buy R500 receipts and keep them :) Looking at buying around six months worth - we currently using a R1000 a month :( can't wait for winter as our electricity usually goes down to R500.
 
the article says 52.3 cents after the april 2011 increase... how come im paying more than 1 rand per kwh already? its like more than double the current "average" price :(
 
purejimcn said:
the article says 52.3 cents after the april 2011 increase... how come im paying more than 1 rand per kwh already? its like more than double the current "average" price :(
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Depends on your zone, etc - I found out the hard-way - bought bulk last year March - and mine came down in April.
 
So glad I'm busy installing solar lighting at home. That should help a bit.
 
From what I understand, if you have a pre-paid meter and get your electricity from the City of CT, they measure your electricity usage by how much you purchase and not by how much you actually use in a month.

This means that if you buy in bulk, they will view you as a high usage client and you will be moved into the domestic high tariff band. This will ultimately work out a great deal more expensive as you will be charged a service charge (currently R6.58 per day plus the energy usage charge for this band). Best to give them a call and find out what tariff band you currently fall in and try and get back into the domestic low (or better Lifeline) categories.

I learnt the hard way!!
 
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I've noticed no matter how much I buy, I pay the same.. i.e. if I buy for three months, or one.
 
A fair bit of that increase will be going towards Eskom's wage bill which will hit an average of R500,000/individual in 2011.
In 2011 the average individual wage at Eskom will surpass the R500 000 mark, said Schüssler.
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Link
 
xrapidx said:
I've noticed no matter how much I buy, I pay the same.. i.e. if I buy for three months, or one.
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As long as you don't go over the limit for the band then you will not go into the next band. So for example, for the domestic low, the limit is <1500 kWh (i.e. 1499 KWh). If you don't go over that when you buy then you should stay in your current band.

See City of CT limits and tariffs here.
 
Oh, joy.
Any idea what the actual increase is?
I'd like to buy in bulk again, but I want to move as well... Decisions, decisions.
 
Greggle said:
As long as you don't go over the limit for the band then you will not go into the next band. So for example, for the domestic low, the limit is <1500 kWh (i.e. 1499 KWh). If you don't go over that when you buy then you should stay in your current band.

See City of CT limits and tariffs here.
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Ah - ok - think we use just below, as we get around 749kw for R500 and buy twice a month at the moment.

(Eskom is our provider I think)
 
xrapidx said:
Just buy R500 receipts and keep them :) Looking at buying around six months worth - we currently using a R1000 a month :( can't wait for winter as our electricity usually goes down to R500.
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That's exactly how we buy ours. I have had a meter fail and they couldn't recover information from it, so they gave us an amount based on our typical monthly usage. And it was pretty close to how much was in the meter when it died.

Greggle said:
From what I understand, if you have a pre-paid meter and get your electricity from the City of CT, they measure your electricity usage by how much you purchase and not by how much you actually use in a month.

This means that if you buy in bulk, they will view you as a high usage client and you will be moved into the domestic high tariff band. This will ultimately work out a great deal more expensive as you will be charged a service charge (currently R6.58 per day plus the energy usage charge for this band). Best to give them a call and find out what tariff band you currently fall in and try and get back into the domestic low (or better Lifeline) categories.
Click to expand...
According to the information I was given the City of Cape Town uses a rolling average over the previous 12 months to determine your usage level. They'd have to do this otherwise you'd have one month where you buy a huge amount, then several months where you apparently used no electricity, so you'd go into the high tariff, then to the Lifeline tariff. You can also request to be moved to a different band if you're in the wrong one. For people who are using more than 1500kWh per month Domestic High should actually work out cheaper per kWh.
 
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