Prepaid meter recoding: Here’s how you will be affected if you purchase electricity from ghost vendors

Residents of Pretoria who purchase electricity from unscrupulous or ghost vendors may expect a life without power from November 24.

The initiative by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to upgrade prepaid electricity meter software will result in some meters not functioning if households and businesses purchase electricity illegally.

Eskom and municipalities kicked off the initiative nationally to see out the large-scale recoding operation that will enable prepaid meters to continue functioning beyond November.

The recoding had to be done because the unique numbers were running out of the current system. The upgrade will change the meter coding software of all prepaid meters from STS Edition 1 (STS-1) to STS Edition 2 (STS-2).

The upgrade comes after Standard Transfer Specification Association (STSA) director Don Taylor said that millions of meters will be facing a crisis of non-functionality by 2024.

Eskom spokesperson Amanda Qithi warned customers who are buying electricity from unregistered vendors that should they continue, their meters would stop working after November 24.

Qithi explained that recoding would not entirely fight off criminals who stole electricity from Eskom, however, “meters of customers who are buying electricity from unregistered vendors will not work after November 24”.

She said there was a difference between customers who bypassed and tampered with their meters and an individual/consumer who had illegally connected to the electricity grid.

She explained that individuals or consumers who had illegally connected to the grid did not necessarily have meters and therefore could not buy electricity, which meant they were stealing electricity directly from the grid.
However customers with meters either bypassed, tampered with or bought electricity from ghost or unregistered illegal vendors, would encounter challenges in connecting to the electrical grid by November 24.

She said illegal connections were unsafe and posed a safety risk to innocent lives, especially children.

“Many fatalities and even more injuries have been reported emanating from contact with electricity, particularly due to illegal connections.”

She said Eskom was concerned that many communities tend to replace illegal connections immediately after they were removed.

“Eskom has identified several illegal connections hotspots within Gauteng.”

Qithi said the unauthorised illegal operations on Eskom equipment were unsafe, damaged and overloaded the infrastructure which resulted in prolonged outages.

“Illegal connections come at a huge loss to Eskom as repair costs to the resultant damages and the loss of revenue are huge, undermining our ability to deliver quality supply to all deserving customers,” Qithi said.

“Eskom, in partnership with the SAPS and other law enforcement agencies, conducts network audits and removes these illegal connections on a constant basis. We further educate the public on the dangers and negative consequences resulting from these irresponsible acts. We need all the support from all stakeholders to appeal to reason across Gauteng and indeed South Africa to curb this pandemic.”

Members of the public are urged to refrain from such acts of criminality as they are not only dangerous but undermine Eskom’s ability to collect revenue and sustain its operations.

Eskom urged customers to ensure that the electricity they consumed was legally connected, paid for, and purchased from legal vendors.

It also urged communities to report illegal activities within their areas.

The Tshwane metro said it was currently recoding city-wide and the Token Identifier (TID) rollover was being carried out in all regions.

Spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said: “A token identity number is calculated from a given base date and has a life span of 31 years. The token identity number memory in the meter must be reset and the meter key must be changed to prevent old tokens from being used. Consumers must upgrade their electricity meters as they will not be able to recharge their meters with new tokens after November 24.”

Mashigo said regions 5 and 7 were yet to be visited to ensure residents transitioned well in the recoding process.

Mashigo said the TID rollover on regions 5 and 7 will commence on October 1 and finish on October 31.

“We are running ahead of schedule because we have adopted a two-pronged approach where customers do their own upgrades as per the instructions on the token receipt and field workers are assisting customers to do the migration.”

He said statistics in this regard are forever changing since customers do their own migration.

Illegally connected users remain an issue and this process will not affect them as they are not Eskom customers.

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