Prepaid electricity service charge hike feeds into Eskom death spiral – Energy expert

702 and CapeTalk’s Stephen Grootes speaks with Matthew Cruise, Energy Expert at IMPOWER.

Listen below:

The City of Joburg (CoJ) wants to hike electricity service charges from R200 to R270 per month.

This means that a person putting R300 of electricity into a prepaid meter would only be able to spend R30 on actual electricity.

Cruise says CoJ is trying to increase the money it gets from people paying for electricity, but it does not necessarily have good grounds for this hike.

He says the City charges consumers double per kilowatt-hour what Eskom charges them for bulk electricity.

This extra money is supposed to go towards maintenance and other costs.

Increasing the fixed cost will further exacerbate the cost-of-living crisis that consumers are grappling with.

Cruise says more businesses are opting to move to solar power instead of buying electricity, as it is significantly more cost-effective in the long run.

RELATED: City Power clears the air on R200 service charge on prepaid meters

“In the business sector if you get a solar system without batteries, the turnaround time of your return on investment is about two and a half years… after that you are getting power for free.”

- Matthew Cruise, Energy Expert at IMPOWER 

“This is problematic for Eskom because it feeds into the Eskom death spiral.”

- Matthew Cruise, Energy Expert at IMPOWER 

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