Urgent Eskom prepaid electricity alert

Power utility Eskom is urging prepaid electricity customers to recode their meters by 24 November 2024, as required by the Standard Transfer Specification Association (STSA).

After this deadline, meters will no longer accept electricity tokens unless they are updated to Key Revision Number (KRN) 2.

Eskom said that there will be no extension to the 24 November 2024 deadline for the Token Identifier (TID) update—it is a make or break moment for all affected.

“The recoding process affects approximately 6.9 million prepaid meters in Eskom-supplied areas. Failure to recode by the deadline will prevent customers from loading electricity tokens, rendering their meters inoperable,” the group said.

The utility said that it has already prepared 97% of the meters by pre-coding them, but the process has to be completed by prepaid owners themselves.

“This Do-It-Yourself process requires customers to purchase credit tokens from authorised vendors, after which they will receive two sets of 20-digit codes to enter into their meters for the update.

“Eskom is intensifying its awareness campaign to ensure all customers are informed and encourages those who have not yet recoded their meters to act quickly to avoid service disruptions.”

The South African Local Government Association (Salga) TID dashboard shows that just under 400,000 prepaid meters still need to be reset, while Eskom’s dashboard indicates that around 2.8 million prepaid meters still need to complete the process.

This equated to around 3.2 million prepaid meters in the country at risk of ceasing to operate in just over a month – or over 91,000 units a day.

Unfortunately, the current rate of progress so far has been far below what is required.

Between June and October, Eskom managed to update an average of only 2,400 meters per day.

If this pace continues, only 84,000 more meters will receive the update by 24 November, leaving millions of prepaid meters missing the deadline.

Read: Trouble for 3 million prepaid electricity users in South Africa next month