The City of Johannesburg has begun replacing outdated, malfunctioning, and bypassed prepaid power metres around the city.
As part of the token identifiers (TID) rollover initiative, the area’s power distributor, City Power, has announced that it will replace these metres at no cost.
The token identifying system for metres ensures security by ensuring that each token may only be used once and is only valid for the metre for which it was purchased.
According to Isaac Mangena, a spokeswoman for City Power, the TID compliance resetting effort would ensure that metres are not locked out come November 2024, when the numbers for recharging tokens will run out.
“For now, the process will be free, but in the future, City Power will disconnect any customer found to have tampered with the newly installed meters or refused to reset the meter for TID compliance,” said the City of Joburg.
Consumers will be charged a reconnection price as well as a recovery fee for the duration of the outage, according to the company.
Work is scheduled to begin in the following regions until June 30:
- Naturena
- Ormonde View
- Ormonde
- Randburg
In the next months, all seven Johannesburg zones will be examined and their metres normalised on a regular basis.
“The programme will assist City Power to clean up its data, ensure unmetered customers, especially in non-affluent areas, have smart meters, which will enable them to buy electricity and assist City Power to monitor and control the load as we battle with load shedding,” said Mangena.
The City of Johannesburg is adjusting metering alongside the City of Tshwane as part of the Gauteng provincial government’s R1.2 billion plan.
The R1.2 billion is likely to go towards attempts to alleviate the country’s poor energy situation, with sections going into rooftop solar development, new metering systems, and other initiatives.
Little information has been provided about the new smart metering system and how energy consumption will be tracked; however, both the City of Joburg and the City of Tshwane have previously stated their intention to make smart metering the norm, with the latter planning to switch all customers to prepaid metres.
Who should have access to your property?
The city has encouraged people to collaborate with authorities during metre updates or improvements; nevertheless, households have been advised to verify evidence of appointment to establish the validity of the officials.
To counteract any kind of misbehaviour from unscrupulous actors, City Power stated that contractors who want to upgrade metres would have a valid card containing the following information:
- A card bearer’s name and surname
- A card bearer’s ID photo
- An expiry date (if the card has already expired, that bearer is not authorised to work on the City Power network)
- The name of the company contracted to the City Power
- No contractor can work with another person’s ID card
- Green ID cards are for meter readers, and turquoise cards are for meter maintenance or installation
For more information, contact the City Power contact centre on 0860 56 2874 (select option 2).