Prepaid meter disaster looms – and Eskom won’t take the blame

Hundreds of people have been rushing to Eskom centres to update their prepaid electricity meters before Sunday’s deadline, or they will face power supply cut-offs.

Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has stressed the deadline won’t be extended – unless prepaid users update their meters, they will need a meter replacement that could cost up to R12,000.

Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena explained on Newzroom Afrika that customers had ample time to prepare since Eskom has been busy with its information campaign for over a year.

Eskom began updating prepaid electricity meters in July 2023, starting with a pilot programme to identify and address potential issues.

By August 2023, Eskom started actively communicating with customers about the update, and by June of this year, approximately 4 million out of 6.9 million customers had already updated their meters.

Eskom used various means to try and communicate the meter deadline to its customers.

These included SMSs, Eskom’s social media platforms, community meetings organised through ward councillors, as well as newsletters and communications on local radio stations which were given in different languages.

Mokwena said there is always more that can be done in terms of communicating, “but I think we’ve done as much as we could”.

However, many people did not heed these warnings and now risk losing their power supply once the 24 November deadline arrives.

Energy analyst Mthunzi Luthuli told Newzroom Afrika that this is a result of people waiting until the last minute to update their meters, not because Eskom didn’t do its job.

“I wouldn’t really blame Eskom for this whole fiasco. I think Eskom started with this program early enough. If anybody is to blame, it’s us as electricity users,” he said.

Many elderly individuals, who may not be as familiar with technology, have been disproportionately affected and are struggling to update their meters.

Luthuli mentioned that although Eskom could have been better prepared to assist these individuals, it would have been challenging to predict that this group would face such difficulties.

Although Eskom can fairly easily determine the number of people who have not migrated to the new system, it is much harder to estimate which groups of people are having problems or what the nature of those problems is.

Given how early Eskom started its program and how extensive its information campaign was, Luthuli said it would be unfair to blame the utility for these last-minute problems, which were likely unavoidable.

“I’m still hoping that all the people that have problems will be processed Eskom has announced that they will be ramping up their efforts to try and process everybody that’s in the queues,” he said.

Eskom has said that they are able to see where meters have not been migrated per region within the distribution areas so they can allocate resources accordingly.

“So, I’m still hoping that most of the problems will be resolved before Monday,” Luthuli added.

How to update prepaid meters

Eskom has implemented a straightforward process to update prepaid electricity meters. The utility has prepared 6.9 million meters by generating key change tokens, which consist of two sets of 20-digit codes, Mokwena explained.

These tokens are issued automatically when customers purchase electricity from authorised vendors.

If a customer has previously received their tokens but hasn’t loaded them onto their meter, they can receive the tokens again during their next purchase or upon request, as the codes are pre-generated and stored by Eskom.

To update the meter, customers need to load the first 20-digit code, followed by the second code, and finally, their usual credit token. Once all three codes are accepted, the meter is updated and rolled over to the new system.

Mokwena said it is important to purchase electricity from authorised vendors, as tokens are not issued when buying from unauthorised or “ghost” vendors.

Most of Eskom’s 6.6 million meters were successfully prepared and pre-coded, but approximately 300,000 meters required additional work due to incomplete customer information, a problem referred to as “blind vending”.

This issue prevented affected customers from buying or loading electricity properly.

Eskom prioritised resolving this and has now completed the process for these customers. However, a further 0.1 million meters remain outstanding and are being addressed.

Customers purchasing electricity from Eskom since last year should already have received their tokens and can update their meters as needed.