Joburg City Power to continue installing smart meters

So the meters allow for remote meter readings ("in realtime", like an un-dead TV broadcast), and they alert ****ty Power when there is a power interruption, is that as smart as a smart meter gets or do these meters do circus tricks as well? I expect the meters also smartly allow for selective load shedding and can be disabled for non-payment and tampering reasons.
 
What's the difference between this "smart" meter and the "dumb" Landis digital PAYG meter that City Power installed recently?
 
j4ck455 said:
So the meters allow for remote meter readings ("in realtime", like an un-dead TV broadcast), and they alert ****ty Power when there is a power interruption, is that as smart as a smart meter gets or do these meters do circus tricks as well? I expect the meters also smartly allow for selective load shedding and can be disabled for non-payment and tampering reasons.
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That's correct, amongst other things.
 
system32 said:
What's the difference between this "smart" meter and the "dumb" Landis digital PAYG meter that City Power installed recently?
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That is what I want to know considering that switching over to a prepaid meter is something I plan to have done, and now there's this curve-ball with a new type of meter that can think for itself and can be configured to be a prepaid meter but sounds even more expensive than the normal prepaid meter.

HavocXphere said:
If it gets rid of their craptastic estimating then I'm all for it.
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+1
 
I had one of the pilot project smart meters. It used gprs to communicate with the mother ship for meter readings and it had a radio link to a meter /switch on the geyser circuit. Not sure what happened but city power stopped using the gprs altogether and just read the meter using a radio receiver in a car that drove up and down the streets.
That company however didn't win the contract for the rollout, that went to Vivian reddy
 
We had a guy show up the other day at our business for this. He was very poorly dressed and at first I took him for a homeless person/beggar. But he did have a very dirty neon vest on. He offered no identification and didn't make himself very clear. I had to listen to him several times before I figured out that he was trying to book a day for them to come and install our smart meter. He offered no identification, but the papers looked official enough. I just gave them my telephone number to call me and book a time.

When he left I watched him go down the road and he was refused entry as far down the road as I could see.
 
Sinbad said:
That company however didn't win the contract for the rollout, that went to Vivian reddy
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Correction Edison Power does belong to Vivan Reddy!

The auditors of Edison Power Group, left my premises now, over 10 minutes taken photos of the layout of the board, meters etc!

They in my area busy installing smart-meters, contacted City Power directly to know more information about this and it is possible to convert to prepaid when the they come install the meter. Ask them to convert the meter to prepaid, receive the job card then you will have to take it to Jorissen Street, probably so they can change it on their system & verify the meter is on prepaid! Going to save about R400 a month on rental/network charge as I am on a 3phase, on prepaid if not mistaken you aren't liable for Network Charge etc. Just for the units you use.


Your City of Johannesburg Rates and Taxes needs to be up-to-date(paid in full) for the conversion to pre-paid.
sent and alarm when power was lost or interrupted.
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This will be interesting! Hopefully they can send a team to investigate if it is cable theft.
 
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RichardG said:
Correction Edison Power does belong to Vivan Reddy!
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I know this. I was referring to Hefcom, which ran the pilot for smart meters in my area.

Can you do prepaid on 3-phase? Wasn't aware of that...
 
Sinbad said:
Can you do prepaid on 3-phase? Wasn't aware of that...
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Yes, you can but doesn't come cheap if dealing directly with City Power. Estimate cost R12 thousand last time I queried with them.

Once they do come over to do the conversion to smart-meter will let you know if the pre-paid option went successful, cos apparently the meter can do pre-paid / directly charged by the utility as the 2 auditors told me. I totally forgot about the smart-meter conversion. They had a notepad size board with them - that is the size of the meter equipment!

I have old outdated meters probably from the 60's just hope the new equipment they install last long!
 
RichardG said:
Yes, you can but doesn't come cheap if dealing directly with City Power. Estimate cost R12 thousand last time I queried with them.

Once they do come over to do the conversion to smart-meter will let you know if the pre-paid option went successful, cos apparently the meter can do pre-paid / directly charged by the utility as the 2 auditors told me. I totally forgot about the smart-meter conversion. They had a notepad size board with them - that is the size of the meter equipment!

I have old outdated meters probably from the 60's just hope the new equipment they install last long!
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Yes, their conversion cost is something like R3500 per meter - you're probably going to need 3 prepaid meters and remember to keep them all topped up :p

Interesting, I wonder if the telescoping tariffs will apply per prepaid meter, or per account...
 
Sinbad said:
Yes, their conversion cost is something like R3500 per meter - you're probably going to need 3 prepaid meters and remember to keep them all topped up :p

Interesting, I wonder if the telescoping tariffs will apply per prepaid meter, or per account...
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meters.png


I highly doubt they will install 2 meters, apparently it is 1 meter now days, majority of the houses in my suburb are all 3-phase meters.

Sinbad I never understood why Johannesburg municipality charged the most for conversion to prepaid, other municipality's charged R1000 for conversion. Even Eskom encourages people to use prepaid!

Smart meters work the same way as prepaid. If no payment is made after several months they can automatically cut off your electricity without sending anyone over to your premises.

http://www.smartmeter.tshwane.gov.za/about.html
 
RichardG said:
Going to save about R400 a month on rental/network charge as I am on a 3phase, on prepaid if not mistaken you aren't liable for Network Charge etc. Just for the units you use.
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That's the main reason that I want to switch to a prepaid meter and I'm on single phase:
Service charge: R254.61
Network charge: R98.94
then R49.50 VAT on top of that, and it comes to R403.05.

I don't particularly want the CoJ's prepaid meter, I would prefer a prepaid meter that doesn't use some crappy ass proprietary wireless comms.

I don't want to be tied into a prepaid meter company that doesn't pass on discounts for reasonable usage. The problem is finding such a prepaid meter company that operates in Joburg.
 
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You don't get a choice in what kind of meter goes in if it's a COJ account. The other types of meters you're talking about are 3rd party sub meters.
I run a sub meter for my cottage. The units are calculated at COJ telescoping tariff rates.
 
j4ck455 said:
That's the main reason that I want to switch to a prepaid meter and I'm on single phase:
Service charge: R254.61
Network charge: R98.94
then R49.50 VAT on top of that, and it comes to R403.05.

I don't particularly want the CoJ's prepaid meter, I would prefer a prepaid meter that doesn't use some crappy ass proprietary wireless comms.

I don't want to be tied into a prepaid meter company that doesn't pass on discounts for reasonable usage. The problem is finding such a prepaid meter company that operates in Joburg.
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I wanted to do the conversion to prepaid long time when I was added to the list but nothing materialised over 3 - 4 Year's ago when they were doing their pilot project. When you go and visit City Power in Booysens they want you to pay for the conversion which amounted to R12,000 +/- which is ridiculous if other municipalities charge R1000 for conversion!

Here is the information / current information I found on City Power website - http://www.citypower.co.za/converts_prepaid.html way too afraid of their current smart-meters I would question the life span due to quality build. My meters in my house is from the early 60's/70's.

There is no other prepaid company in Johannesburg, you buy your units directly from City Power and if City powers system goes off line then we are left in the dark! It's madness what I currently pay R900 for ELECTRICITY alone, crossing fingers that once they do switch it over to prepaid that we won't incur unnecessary cost such as Network / Service charges . CITY POWER website is so outdated!!!
Current Charges
2013/2014:
Standard Step Tariff (for Tariff B municipal clients) (all these rates are VAT exclusive)

0-500 kWh R0.8904 per unit,
500-1000 KWh R1.0106 per unit,
1001-2000 kWh R1.0760 per unit,
2001-3000 kWh R1.1903 per unit,
>3000 kWh R1.2763 per unit.
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Taken from : https://www.prepaid24.co.za/tariffs-and-charges_faq_op_list_category_29
 
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Sinbad said:
You don't get a choice in what kind of meter goes in if it's a COJ account. The other types of meters you're talking about are 3rd party sub meters.
I run a sub meter for my cottage. The units are calculated at COJ telescoping tariff rates.
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RichardG said:
There is no other prepaid company in Johannesburg, you buy your units directly from City Power and if City powers system goes off line then we are left in the dark!
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I was hoping that there would be an alternative to the CoJ's prepaid meters, hopes duly dashed to pieces :(
 
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