Many South Africans could fork out R12,000 for new prepaid electricity meters

Roughly 300,000 Eskom direct customers failed to update their prepaid electricity meters by the 24 November 2024 deadline, meaning they may have to replace their meters at a cost of up to R12,000.

In a recent statement, the state-owned power utility warned that meters still on Key Revision Number 1 (KRN 1) after 24 November will become inoperable, and these households will lose power once their current credits are depleted.

This is because all Standard Transfer Specifications (STS)-compliant meters worldwide have a time-based security mechanism called the token identifier (TID) that started counting down from one minute after midnight on 1 January 1993.

The TID will run out of range on 24 November, and Eskom and municipal power suppliers have been urging their customers to recode their meters to KRN 2 by this date so that their meters can continue vending power.

Eskom and the South African Local Government Association (Salga) provide KRN dashboards on their respective websites, tracking the progress of meter upgrades as the deadline approaches.

The Salga KRN dashboard shows that 222,703 municipal customers hadn’t updated their meters by the deadline.

Eskom’s KRN dashboard shows that 1.9 million customers failed to update their meters. However, according to Eskom general manager Al’louise van Deventer, the real number is closer to 300,000 households.

“Overall, we have seen that up to 99% of our customers are currently able to transact on KRN 2. So, the project has been a huge success,” Van Deventer told eNCA.

“We have seen an overwhelming response from the zero buyer community. It leaves us with a balance of just over 300,000 customers that still have to respond to the call.”

For reference, Eskom uses the term “zero buyer” to describe someone who consumes electricity without purchasing it.

These include households that bypassed their meters or purchased illegal electricity tokens from “ghost vendors”.

Eskom has assured these customers that they will be able to update their meters after 24 November, provided they already purchased electricity from an official vendor before the deadline.

“Current zero buyers with active meters have been granted an extension to update their meters to be KRN2 (Key Revision Number 2) compliant beyond the 24 November 2024 deadline,” Eskom said in a statement on Friday, 22 November.

To update their meter, customers must input two 20-digit Key Change Tokens, similar to how they would recharge with regular electricity voucher codes.

Last week, Eskom urged zero buyers to visit legitimate electricity vendors where they’d receive their Key Change Tokens upon purchasing an electricity voucher.

“This action of purchasing credit tokens must be completed before Sunday, 24 November 2024, to trigger the activation of the meter to the KRN2 mode,” said Eskom.

It added that once completed, these customers can visit any Eskom site to complete the update process. This can be done after 24 November 2024.

Eskom issued a separate statement last week warning that anyone who has not obtained their Key Change Tokens could be on the hook for up to R12,000 to replace their prepaid meter.

While people in the industry have challenged the accuracy of this claim, Eskom has yet to clarify or withdraw it.

Signs of wide-reaching electricity theft

According to Eskom, the fact that such a large number of meters haven’t been updated to KRN 2 despite the power utility pre-coding over six million meters could indicate widespread electricity theft.

It said a significant portion of its customers’ prepaid meters haven’t been vending electricity, which Eskom said could be due to one of four reasons:

• The customers have bypassed their meters and consume electricity without reducing their units.
• Customers are loading their meters with illegal electricity tokens from illicit or “ghost” vendors.
• These are meters in areas which Eskom has disconnected.
• The meters are loaded with a large amount of electricity, which is unlikely due to Eskom’s Incline Block Tariff structure, which discourages buying in bulk.

Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena revealed in September 2024 that the state-owned power utility carried out an auditing process to identify illegally connected customers.

Customers with illegal connections were disconnected and fined around R6,050.

“We’ve got customers that we have disconnected because when we audited their meters, we found that customers have done these illicit behaviours,” said Mokwena.

“The process is that we disconnect the customer. We fine the customer depending on what the customer is consuming. If it’s a 60amp or 20amp customer, we fine the customer about R6,050.”

“The customer stays disconnected until they pay that amount,” she added.

She explained that in some regions, Eskom had disconnected entire communities where it found that 90% of customers in the area were using illegal connections.

Eskom will disconnect such areas until such time as it comes to an agreement with residents to pay their penalties.

“We then replace the meters that they would have vandalised,” added Mokwena.