As of November 24, 2024, many of South Africa’s 11.64 million prepaid electricity meters may stop functioning if they don’t receive a critical update in time. The urgency stems from a technical limit known as the TID Rollover event, which affects meters using Standard Transfer Specifications-compliant (STS) technology.
Critical Deadline for Prepaid Meters
Effective November 24, 2024, all STS-compliant prepayment meters will cease to dispense electricity unless updated. This poses significant risks to municipalities, electricity sales, and revenue collection. The TID, based on a reference date of 1993, will reach its limit, causing meters to reject new tokens as old ones.
Impact: Meters will stop accepting new credit tokens and dispensing electricity once existing credits are used up.
Technical Issue: Tokens generated after the deadline will be rejected because the TID value will reset to zero.
Updating the Meters
Electricity distributors, including Eskom and municipalities, are urging customers to update their meters by entering a 20-digit KRN code, provided through the same channels used for regular electricity purchases.
Implementation: Eskom and municipalities have deployed teams to assist households with the update.
Progress and Challenges
The update process, mandated over ten years ago, gained momentum only in recent years. Eskom, which manages nearly 6.9 million of the country’s meters, started its KRN rollover pilot in Gauteng just a year ago.
Initial Steps: In the beginning, only 5,800 meters had been updated.
Current Status: By October 2023, the number had risen to 678,000. As of June 10, 2024, 3.74 million of Eskom’s meters (54.2%) have been updated.
Municipal Updates: According to the South African Local Government Association (Salga), 2.91 million out of 4.94 million municipal meters (59%) have received the update.
Alarming Statistics
With only five and a half months remaining, about 5.18 million meters still need updates, requiring nearly 31,000 meters to be updated daily.
Recent Progress: From May 13 to June 10, 170,000 meters were updated, averaging 6,071 meters per day.
Future Projection: At this rate, only 1.02 million more meters will be updated by the deadline, potentially leaving hundreds of thousands without the update.
Municipal Challenges
Municipalities show a slower update rate. Over the same period, only 84,000 meters were updated, suggesting that only an additional 500,000 of the remaining 2.02 million meters will be updated by the deadline.
Eskom’s Reassurances
Despite the concerning trends, Eskom is confident in its progress. Monde Bala, Eskom’s group executive for distribution, emphasized the utility’s efforts in educating and assisting customers with the DIY recording process.
Customer Support: Eskom teams are ready to help customers who face challenges and have logged queries with reference numbers.
Commitment: “Eskom is committed to maintaining a rapid pace to ensure all meters are recoded before the deadline,” stated Bala.
Conclusion
As South Africa approaches the critical deadline, both Eskom and municipalities must accelerate their efforts to update all prepaid meters. Failure to do so could result in widespread disruptions, impacting millions of households and the overall stability of the electricity supply system. The ongoing updates and customer cooperation are crucial to averting a potential electricity nightmare.
