Author Archive for: Engineering News

Those “aggrieved” by the upcoming 18.65% electricity tariff hike will have to lodge a court application to challenge the energy regulator’s decision, power utility Eskom has said. This comes days after President Cyril Ramaphosa told delegates at the African National Congress Free State provincial conference that he asked the power utility to halt the tariff hike amid ongoing loadshedding. The tariff is set to kick in April. skom indicated that the National Energy Regulator of South Africa is the only authority in the country that can set the price that consumers can be charged for electricity. Nersa also follows an “exhaustive” public participation process to get input from different stakeholders and considers the costs that Eskom will incur before deciding on the final outcome. “If Eskom does not recover from the consumer, then the burden on the taxpayer increases. Thus efficient costs will need to be recovered – they do not just disappear,” the power utility said.

The National Treasury has granted the City of Cape Town an exemption from competitive bidding or tendering processes for the buying of electricity from companies or households. The exemption was needed because South Africa’s public finance legislation did not foresee energy procurement from independent power producers, only from State-owned power utility Eskom.

City Power in Johannesburg spends roughly R100-million a year to secure its substations and mini substations from vandalism and theft, according to spokesperson Keneilwe Sebola. And the amount could triple if the security issues persist. In fact, the City could spend as much as R1-million a day on the replacement of damaged mini substations, she added.

The City of Johannesburg’s (CoJ’s) electricity utility City Power will upgrade smart electricity meters, or replace older meters, as the token identifier system, which is the current prepaid electricity voucher system, will run out of voucher sequences for the unique tokens produced specifically for each meter by November 24, 2024. The token identifier system is a security measure that ensures a token can only be used once and for the meter number it was bought for. Tokens bought after November 24 next year will not be recognised by the current prepaid meters, which have been installed since 1993, says CoJ environment and infrastructure services MMC Michael Sun.

Several political parties, unions, community-based organisations and individuals have approached the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to seek an urgent hearing on relief measures amid continued load shedding. The group, which includes Build One South Africa (BOSA), the United Democratic Movement and the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa, among others, announced the move in a media briefing on Monday.