Eskom prepaid meter blunder

Following a week of South African prepaid meter users panicking to get their electricity meter updated, resulting in the death of a customer, Eskom has been criticised for not effectively communicating the deadline, The City Press reports.

Eskom and municipalities across South Africa have been scrambling to get their customers to recode a combined 11 million prepaid meters with the key revision number 2 (KRN 2) update in the past year.

The recoding is necessary due to a time-based security mechanism in most meters called the token identifier (TID) running out of range today, 24 November 2024.

This problem is not unique to South Africa. All Standard Transfer Specifications (STS)-compliant meters worldwide had to receive KRN update tokens before the rollover date.

Despite having a decade to perform the update, Eskom only started preparing meters for KRN rollover — what it has dubbed as “precoding” — about a year and three months before the deadline.

The power utility and local municipalities lack sufficient resources or workforces to perform the updates, so they rely on customers to enter two 20-digit codes to update their meters to KRN 2.

During the past year, Eskom repeatedly insisted that it was on track to meet the deadline with its KRN update process.

However, this has not been the case as South Africans have been standing in long queues similar to those during election time, with no choice but to wait it out.

This is mainly because Eskom and energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa insisted there could be no extension.

Eskom also said that if customers miss the deadline, a fee of R12,000 will need to be paid for a replacement meter.

To be clear — meters still on KRN 1 would be unable to accept electricity vouchers from 20:15 tonight. However, it will be possible to still perform the update to KRN 2 after the deadline.

Unfortunately, Eskom’s communication around this sparked panic in many customers.

This is why one 67-year-old woman in the queue at the Diepkloof service centre in Soweto told The City Press that she had been queuing since 11 p.m. the night before, sleeping on her chair to keep her spot in line.

She criticised the government for the queuing conditions created by the panic and said it was the most inhumane way a government could treat its citizens, as customers in line had to relieve themselves at nearby petrol stations.

She also highlighted that she had only been made aware of the need to update her metre via an SMS sent on Tuesday earlier this week and was surprised there was nothing about it on the radio or TV.

Queuers also seemed to be unaware of the extension of the deadline announced for zero-buyers on Friday, 22 November.

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

This could be because they are buying vouchers from so-called “ghost vendors” or because their meter is bypassed.

Essentially, it means these users have been consuming electricity illegally.

“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.

“A technological breakthrough has enabled Eskom to pre-create Key Change Tokens (KCT) on its online vending system.”

The power utility urged zero buyers to visit legal vending sites with their prepaid meter numbers to buy electricity, and vending agents would then issue them their KCT.

“Once the meter has been activated by the purchase of electricity, the customer can then visit any of the Eskom sites to complete the conversion process. The final step can be completed after 24 November 2024.”

Of Eskom’s 6.9 million meters registered, only 4.96 million Key Change Tokens had been issued as of Sunday morning.

Among municipal electricity distributors, 239,302 meters were still outstanding.