COJ have tabled draft tariffs for the 2021/2022 financial year. These will kick in July 1st unless there are objections that are upheld. Any objections must be tabled by May 3rd.

As regards electricity...

They say their increase across the board is just under the 15% that Eskom will get. We have heard this from the City before, that they are taking a knock on behalf of their hard pressed property owners*

I don't have details about post-paid tariffs, but the major talking point was pre-paid users. My position is that yes, we get a better deal, and yes, we should. We pay in advance. That's good for the seller's cash flow and they should give us a consideration.

• The flat fee surcharge per pre-paid account that was proposed and then abandoned for the last 2 years has finally been added. R200 for domestic properties, R400 for business.
• Qualifying domestic pre-paid customers will get a flat R200 per month discount if they agree to have a 20A main breaker fitted (effectively this is the cancellation of the surcharge).
• The increase has been applied unevenly across the pre-paid tariff blocks. The lowest block (0-350 kw/h per month) gets a 9.1% increase.
• But the next block (351-500 kw/h) gets an 18.1% increase. Ouch!

There is mention of sell-back tariffs, and provision for IPPs, but we will have to see what the numbers are. 

* I just crunched the numbers. I've been pre-paid for years and averaged about 410kw/h before I went solar. With the addition of the flat fee I'd have copped a 40% increase. If you buy just 350 kw/h per month you will see a 44% increase unless you already have or switch to the 20A breaker.

Edited March 26, 20215 yr by Bobster

Turns out the R200 discount is only available in "non-affluent" areas, and may not be claimed by anybody who has an alternate power source other than a solar geyser.

Also I note that COJ may argue, probably successfully, that they have only increased my electricity purchase by a below-par 9.1% and that the R200 per month is a charge for provision of service that they are entitled to impose under section whatever of the relevant act.

 

Well I built a model, including all the fixed charges and 6c per kw/h surcharge that post-paid users pay for all consumption over 500 kw/h. Pre-paid users do still come out ahead, though not by as much as they used to.

EG 1000 kw/h a month, you used to save 724.45 (including the 2.5% your bank adds to the transaction), but going forward you will save 308.37.

If I didn't have solar I'd still be saving about 500 a month under the new tariffs. 

Post-paid users will see much less of a %age increase, because they are paying R717 + VAT per month in service charges before they pay a cent for electricity. At 1000 kw/h PM they will see only about a tenner difference. Increase? What increase?

This is all because of fees imposed under section whatever. And also because they have to manage a post-paid account (read your meter, calculate usage, possibly send thugs around to talk to you about arrears) whereas a pre-paid account manages itself. 

Post-paid users, it is proposed, will see no change in the service charges and a 14.59% in cost per kw/h.

CoCT added the flat connection charge to post paid last year year. Not sure if prepaid customers are paying this yet. For CoCT it's ±R170. 

I really don't have an issue with this fixed grid availability network charge. I might have an issue if I was paying the R700 plus that CoJ customers are paying. 

Prepaid customers will probably not enjoy that new R200 "capacity charge" 😠

Sadly I think objections will stop the proposed charge. 

"Residential pre-paid customers will be charged R200/month capacity charge"

Another way of milking the base of paying clients.  

18 minutes ago, GreenMan said:

"Residential pre-paid customers will be charged R200/month capacity charge"

If this means there is never an outage/load shed/rolling blackout, that may be worth it, as soon  as there is, that capacity charge should be refunded...

So the R200 capacity charge has been dropped from the 2021/22 tariff proposals. The tariffs are not yet finalised. That will happen towards the end of this month.

This will be very interesting to see...

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On 2021/05/17 at 4:02 PM, Bobster said:

So the R200 capacity charge has been dropped from the 2021/22 tariff proposals. The tariffs are not yet finalised. That will happen towards the end of this month.

Well was it dropped? The tariffs are finally in the public domain. The first 350 kw/h that were going to take an under par increase to help out poor folks and other low consumers has actually gone up by 17% - over par. This will hit all users, so whilst there won't be a R200 surcharge on the bill, they will extract extra from everybody with a pre-paid meter.

Also there is talk of domestic properties with embedded generation and that are net consumers having to switch to the TOU tariff.