Smart Meter rollout imminent
In a meeting with Ward 1 representatives, held at Bela-Bela Local Municipality on Tuesday, 29 October, members were briefed by the municipality, and the contractor on what the program will entail to install approximately14 500 smart pre-paid electricity meters in the Bela-Bela Municipal area.
The rollout program will start on Friday, 1 November, and the contractors plan to install the first meters on Monday, 4 November.
Currently, Bela-Bela Municipality has about 9,800 prepaid meters on its books, of which the location of only 4,500 of these meters is known. With the existing pre-paid meters replacement and conventional meters with the new smart meters, Bela-Bela Municipality will be able to keep track of every installed meter.
The rollout is expected to start on Monday, with Ward 1 being the first to receive the meters as a test run. The contractors aim to install around 500 meters per week and hope to finish the rollout by the end of February 2025.
The installations will be done street by street and residents will be informed of the schedule by the municipality, on social media, and by word of mouth by councilors. The smart meters will be provided free of charge as a project by the National Treasury, which will be funding the endeavor fully.
According to the contractor from Cigicell, Gary Beukes, the installation should not take longer than an hour, but they will need access to the premises to do so. Benefits of the new smart meters include the elimination of many error codes as experienced with the old meters.
A 24-hour Call Centre to assist customers will be in place where any queries or faults can be reported and most of the issues can be solved online from the Call Center without the need for a technician to be dispatched.
All credit on the current pre-paid meters will be transferred to the new meters, but the change from conventional meters will require the customer to load a pre-paid token.
The municipality is discussing the possibility of issuing such clients with a certain amount of units, and Beukes also added that each meter automatically comes with a pre-loaded 5 units installed.
Beukes said that the new meters will be wireless, and you can keep them anywhere within the residence. There is also an app available on Play Store that users can download and through the app, the new meters can be monitored from anywhere in the country.
You will see your usage, load tokens, and confirm that everything is running smoothly while you are not near your residence.
Every account linked to Bela-Bela Municipality will receive a new meter, which includes the town proper, Noodhulp, Roodepoort, Bospoort, and the greater township. Eskom clients will not receive new meters. Currently, all Single-Phase residential premises will be serviced by the new meters, and Three-Phase premises are expected to be replaced in January or February 2025.
The biggest issue of the new meter’s implementation, as envisioned by the Head of Communication, Peter Moloto, is the timely and efficient communication to residents about what the project entails.
The issue of security has also been raised and the contractors have undertaken to provide the municipality with the identification, and photographs of all their employees to allow residents to confirm the identity of the employees wishing to enter their property.
The first beneficiaries of the new smart meters will be the Mayor, the Municipal Manager, the Ward Councilor, and Ward Council Members, to ensure that any issues with the meters, and any faults registered can be communicated immediately and efficiently to sort out any issues before residents are affected.
