Big announcement for people with prepaid electricity meters in South Africa

Many stakeholders, including Eskom and the Western Cape Government, have urged households with prepaid electricity meters to upgrade them urgently.

On Thursday, the Western Cape Government told residents that once the software expires, residents will not be able to recharge with new tokens.

Should this occur, residents will not be able to load electricity, and the household will lose its power supply.

The update requires a manual reset code, which must be entered into the pre-paid meter in the same way as normal recharge codes.

Unless people enter the new reset code, their prepaid electricity meter will stop working on 24 November 2024.

The problem is linked to the tokens prepaid meters in South Africa used to load credits. Each token uses a unique Token Identifier (TID).

The TID is a 20-digit number. This field only has certain possible values and will overflow on 24 November 2024 unless it is reset.

“With only a month to go, we urge residents to ensure that their pre-paid electricity meters are updated before the deadline,” the Western Cape’s Finance Minister Deidré Baartman said.

“We do not want a situation where any household is left behind and, in the dark, come 24 November.”

Baartman said the Western Cape is close to full compliance, with 98.4% of meters already reset within municipal supply areas. This is well ahead of the national average of 85.6%.

In a separate press statement, Eskom urged its customers to recode their meters by the 24 November 2024 deadline.

It highlighted that this recording is required by the Standard Transfer Specification Association (STSA).

Eskom warned that there will be no extension to the 24 November 2024 deadline for the Token Identifier update.

“The recoding process affects approximately 6.9 million prepaid meters in Eskom-supplied areas,” Eskom said.

“Failure to recode by the deadline will prevent customers from loading electricity tokens, rendering their meters inoperable.”

It explained that this do-it-yourself process requires customers to purchase credit tokens from authorised vendors.

This will receive two sets of 20-digit codes to enter into their meters for the update to ensure they do not stop working after 24 November.

City Power announcement

On 23 October 2024, City Power clarified and rectified a previous statement regarding the Token Identifier (TID) rollover deadline.

City Power initially communicated an extension of the TID rollover deadline from 24 November 2024 to 31 May 2025.

However, it emphasise that this extension is specifically limited to the Generation of Key Change Tokens only. 

“To clarify, the original TID rollover deadline of 24 November 2024 remains in effect for all prepaid customers who have not yet upgraded their metering codes,” City Power said.

This means that all prepaid customers must still complete their TID rollover update by next month.

“The postponement of the deadline to 31 May 2025 only applies to the generation of key change tokens,” it explained.

“Customers who have not yet upgraded from KRN1 to KRN2 as required in a month’s time will no longer be able to load units on their meters after the cut-off date.”

However, for those who are still in process of normalisation of meters, there is a grace period between now and 31 May 2025.

“If their meters are normalized after the November deadline, entities can still generate key change tokens to enable metering code upgrade,” it said.

If the May deadline passes and customers still refuse to get their meters normalized, then they face having to purchase new meters altogether.

City of Cape Town announcement

The City of Cape Town said that this update does not apply to its customers as all meters have already been updated over the past three years.

The city said inaccurate and confusing reporting caused concern among many of its customers that they will be disconnected on 24 November.

It explained that its residents do not have to worry about the updates because “all of the approximately 570 000 City prepaid meters have been done”.

The City of Cape Town explained that its customers have all received long codes to update their own meter software. All updates were done ahead of the national schedule.

There is also City of Cape Town prepaid meter replacement programme to replace old electricity credit meters and prepaid meters with new prepaid meters.

“The replacement is free of charge, and the new meter will ensure more accurate readings, greater usage control and cost management,” the city said.

The replacement is compulsory as the meters belong to the City of Cape Town. There is a schedule of areas being visited in a phased approach.

“There is no difference in the cost of electricity between the old credit and new prepaid meters as the meters only measure usage,” it added.

Cape Town said it was replacing older electricity credit and prepaid meters and phasing in new, smarter prepaid meters across the metro in City-supplied suburbs.

“When a particular area is due for replacement, we will deliver letters to customers’ homes to arrange appointments,” it said.

The city’s mayoral committee member for energy, Alderman Xanthea Limberg, said the meter replacement programme is beneficial to residents.

“The newer meters help with cost management, accuracy of readings, usage control and monitoring,” Limberg said.

“It also enables qualifying beneficiaries to move to the highly subsidised, affordable Lifeline Tariff, which includes Free Basic Electricity (FBE).”