Municipalities across South Africa are racing against time to enable residents to update prepaid electricity meters before they stop working on November 24.

Based on the Standard Transfer Specification (STS), a globally used protocol for transferring electricity and utility tokens, the standard prepaid system is running out of unique numbers to issue as recharge codes. Residents need to enter a ‘reset’ code to continue receiving unique codes before the deadline. Failure to complete the reset will leave residents unable to buy electricity and municipalities unable to generate revenue from the sale of prepaid electricity.

An estimated 1 047 682 municipal meters in the Western Cape (approximately 82.5% of households) have completed the reset, compared to 51% nationally, says Western Cape Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, Mireille Wenger.

“But we are very concerned about the slow progress in resetting meters in areas where customers purchase electricity directly from Eskom. These consumers risk being cut off and face a permanent electricity black-out in their homes and businesses.”

According to the STS Association, there are approximately 10 million STS meters in South Africa, seven million of which are in Eskom service areas and 3 million in municipal service areas.

Joburg introduces DIY method

To fast track the rollout of the token identifier (TID) programme, City Power customers can now, starting Monday, April 15, recode their own meters using an automated system.

Of 283 966 registered prepaid meters, only 38 474 have been converted and 84 998 fully audited. There are still over 245 000 meters that still need to be converted, the power utility said in a statement. “This will accelerate the rate of the TID rollout and ensure that customers can purchase electricity tokens past the deadline.

“A schedule with specific dates a suburb can convert to the new system will be shared through all the entity’s communication platforms. Technicians will be on standby to assist those encountering challenges when re-coding their meters.”

Once City Power indicates an active area, customers will receive three token codes when they make their next electricity purchases. There are three steps to recode the prepaid meter:

• Key in the first 20 numbers of the re-code token and wait for it to be accepted.
• Key in the second 20 numbers of the recode token and wait for it to be accepted.
• The last crucial step is to key in the 20 numbers of the purchased token to recharge the meter.