200 Days left until pre-paid meter black-out

The deadline to update prepaid electricity and water meters before they stop working on 24 November 2024, is now just over 200 days away.

“We are making steady progress in the switch over of pre-paid water and electricity meters in the Western Cape, but now is the time to ramp up efforts to complete the process to avoid disaster come 24 November 2024. If we don’t, it will be equivalent to load-shedding on steroids for thousands of homes and businesses,” said Western Cape, Provincial Minister of Finance and Economic Opportunities, Mireille Wenger.

“We have an estimated 1 047 682 municipal meters in the province, and as of 30 April, approximately 88.1% have been updated, up from 82.5% at the beginning of April this year. I’d specifically like to congratulate Bergriver Municipality which has now completed the switch over for all pre-paid meters under their jurisdiction, joining Cape Agulhas Municipality, which was the first municipality to complete the reset in the province. I am also encouraged to see many other municipalities on the verge of completing their processes to switch over,” shared Minister Wenger.

The update is urgently required because the standard system that provides unique re-charge codes will soon run out of unique numbers to issue. A ‘reset’ code for each pre-paid meter is therefore needed to ensure that residents can continue to receive unique codes beyond 24 November 2024. This can be simply entered into the meter in the same way that normal recharge voucher codes are entered.

Failure to complete the reset will leave residents unable to buy electricity and municipalities unable to generate revenue from the sale of prepaid electricity or water.

Used by over 500 power utilities across the world, the Standard Transfer Specification (STS) is the primary global standard protocol for the transfer of electricity and other utility prepayment tokens. According to the STS Association, there are approximately 10 million STS meters in South Africa, 7 million of which are in Eskom service areas, and 3 million in municipal service areas.

“The Provincial Treasury has gathered all the contact details for the relevant official in each municipality so residents are able to contact them with any queries they may have” continued Minister Wenger. This contact list can be found on https://www.westerncape.gov.za/files/municipal_contact_details_for_prepaid_electricity_meter_reset_process.png

“I’d like to strongly urge our municipalities that have yet to complete the process to urgently do so. It is critical that we work together to avoid the looming pre-paid meter black-out, providing certainty and continued service delivery to households and businesses” concluded Minister Wenger.