SA electricity prices: Eskom vs City Power

Kevin Lancaster said:
South African electricity prices: Eskom vs City Power

There is a widespread perception that municipal electricity distributors buy electricity from Eskom and then resell it to domestic customers with massive mark-ups.
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Great article.
You should also mention that CityPower offers 100kWh/per month of Free Basic Electricity (FBE aka ANC promise of free) for the indigent.
You need to prove that you are indigent to qualify.

Not sure what Eskom offers.
 
km2 said:
Why don't you include the City of Cape Town numbers to show the real electricity savaging.

0-600 : c/kWh 134.76 excl VAT 153.63 incl VAT
600.1+ : c/kWh 163.87 excl VAT 186.81 incl VAT

https://www.capetown.gov.za/en/electricity/Elec%20tariffs%20201415/Schedule%20of%20Consumptive%20Tariffs.pdf
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We get great service from CoCT. So I don't mind at all paying more.

Speaking of which, I find it really strange that the rates are not logarithmic. My apartment costs 1000% more than another one, yet the rates are only 300% more expensive. While I don't mind paying less, I do feel a tad bad about it
 
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JStrike said:
It's better here :)
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spiff said:
this ^ :)
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yes yes yes .... I also love Cape Town .... think it is a beautiful place blah blah blah ... so please stop sniffing your own farts while punting your city :p .... and tell me what practical reasons there could be for it to be so much more expensive? Is it because of Koeberg?
 
Ockie said:
yes yes yes .... I also love Cape Town .... think it is a beautiful place blah blah blah ... so please stop sniffing your own farts while punting your city :p .... and tell me what practical reasons there could be for it to be so much more expensive? Is it because of Koeberg?
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No. The City of Cape Town buys electricity from Eskom at the same price as other municipalities, but charges consumers more so that it has more revenue. Which it uses to provide us better service
 
I pay R400/m more in CT than I would have in Joburg (before I moved) for the same power. It's worth it.

I don't mind paying more if the money goes into better reliability (I have seen the difference), into services and into upgrading the poorer areas

I do think we should get a discount for not having streetlights in our area.
 
JStrike said:
No. The City of Cape Town buys electricity from Eskom at the same price as other municipalities, but charges consumers more so that it has more revenue. Which it uses to provide us better service
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Agreed. Not so sure about the services though but from what I hear Cape Town is getting better services by comparison to other big Cities. How much we get back on each Rand spent would be an interesting number to know.

The "revenue collection" argument was confirmed by a DA Member of Parliament to me a few years ago when I queried him about the high sliding rate charged for water consumption for people that use more than 45Kl per month, in actual fact such a bill can make your electricity bill look quite small by comparison. That was before the sliding scale of billing came in for electricity too.

If the ANC ever had to take the Cape, I am going to set aside a few hundred thousand and get myself completely off the grid. Inverter, gas and solar, stuff them, the ANC will simply take a cash positive Municipality like Cape Town and within a year or two make it bankrupt. There is only one reason the ANC want the Cape and the Western Cape, to loot the coffers, end of story.
 
Look guys, I'm not necessarily for or against funding the City via reselling electricity. I really haven't thought all that much about what the most fair way of funding the city is.

What I am interested in is pointing out a municipality that matches the "widespread perception that municipal electricity distributors buy electricity from Eskom and then resell it to domestic customers with massive mark-ups".

The sole example given by Chris of City Power makes it look like that perception is just wild unsubstantiated rumours, while it's entirely true in the City of Cape Town.
 
This doesn't make sense.

I use less than 600kWh monthly (on prepaid meter) and I pay R1,83/kWh which is the price if you use more than 600kWh according to this article.

I actually only use around 300 on average.

What the hell?
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
This doesn't make sense.

I use less than 600kWh monthly (on prepaid meter) and I pay R1,83/kWh which is the price if you use more than 600kWh according to this article.

I actually only use around 300 on average.

What the hell?
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how often do you buy?
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
This doesn't make sense.

I use less than 600kWh monthly (on prepaid meter) and I pay R1,83/kWh which is the price if you use more than 600kWh according to this article.

I actually only use around 300 on average.

What the hell?
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Do you live in a complex? Does your prepaid meter look like this?
 
recre8 said:
Do you live in a complex? Does your prepaid meter look like this?
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Yes and yes (that's the exact meter).

What does that mean?

EDIT: The person who designed the keypad on that meter should be shot, it has 4 number keys per row. Oddly frustrating if you're used to every other keypad layout ever.
 
km2 said:
Why don't you include the City of Cape Town numbers to show the real electricity savaging.

0-600 : c/kWh 134.76 excl VAT 153.63 incl VAT
600.1+ : c/kWh 163.87 excl VAT 186.81 incl VAT

https://www.capetown.gov.za/en/electricity/Elec%20tariffs%20201415/Schedule%20of%20Consumptive%20Tariffs.pdf
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IIRC, Cape is subject to "Transmission and Distribution" charges by Eskom.
They are in "zone 3" >900km from where the power is generated.
See the Eskom rates:
http://www.eskom.co.za/CustomerCare...hedule of Std Prices 2014_15 (rev22Jan14).pdf
Not sure if these charges are enough to account for the difference.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Yes and yes (that's the exact meter).

What does that mean?

EDIT: The person who designed the keypad on that meter should be shot, it has 4 number keys per row. Oddly frustrating if you're used to every other keypad layout ever.
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It means you are being supplied by a electricity reseller. And with it being the Actaris prepaid meter (multi-year award winner of the Worst Designed User Input Device as you mentioned) it is most probably PEC who is supplying you.

In short, it means outside the complex is a "bulk" electricity meter. Eskom bills the complex for the entire usage of the complex and a company like PEC metering "resells" the electricity to you. When NERSA launched the Inclining Block Tariff structure (IBT) s back in 2008 or 2009, as you can only expect from a South Africa government institution, it was done half-arsed as usual and the result is that people like you and me and pretty much anyone else who lives in a complex and is supplied by Eskom is getting shafted.

Eskom applies the IBT to the bulk meter, meaning that the first 600 units the entire complex uses in total is at the lower rate. You can see how 600 units among 10 or 20 or 50 flats/houses isn't going to last nearly as long as when it is applied to a single household. So what does PEC do? They just charge you a flat rate at the highest block.

I've been to a NERSA stakeholder meeting about this. I've answered their stakeholder questionnaires multiple times. The process is still dragging on.

Anyway, I've written a post or two about this.

I even contacted the City of Cape Town directorate and quoted them on their own by-law that states that no electricity may be resold at a rate higher than if the customer was supplied directly by City of Cape Town... and they responded... that my area, and arguably yours too if you are being resold by PEC, falls outside of the supply area of the City of Cape Town is therefore not subject to the enforcement of the by-law. So yes, we are the mercy of NERSA. 6 years later and I think they are getting close to setting a date by which to start doing some planning about maybe doing something about it maybe sometime in the future... maybe. At the very least they have been making some empty remarks about it lately
 
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