{"id":178555,"date":"2017-06-12T11:32:44","date_gmt":"2017-06-12T09:32:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=178555"},"modified":"2017-06-12T11:32:44","modified_gmt":"2017-06-12T09:32:44","slug":"how-much-more-you-could-be-paying-for-electricity-next-year-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/178555\/how-much-more-you-could-be-paying-for-electricity-next-year-experts\/","title":{"rendered":"How much more you could be paying for electricity next year: experts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eskom\u2019s plans for a 20% tariff increase next year assumes higher economic growth than any analyst has previously forecast, and South Africans should brace themselves for much larger increases, according to a report by the City Press<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

This follows the leak of\u00a0Eskom\u2019s proposed tariff hike to the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) last week, which amongst other proposals, assumes a physically impossible doubling of sales by renewable energy independent power producers (IPPs) – despite Eskom actively fighting against their coming online.<\/p>\n

The proposed hike also\u00a0assumes that Eskom will release close to \u00ad\u00ad4,300 workers (around 10% of its workforce) by March 2019, by not filling the posts left vacant when a member of staff retires.<\/p>\n

“These assumptions make the application likely to once again result in an enormous additional tariff request later on using the so-called Regulatory Clearing Account (RCA), which is a monitoring and tracking mechanism that compares certain uncontrollable costs and revenues with actual costs and revenues incurred by Eskom,” said the City Press.<\/p>\n

The report also noted that while Eskom is likely to approach Nersa with the 20% figure, the majority of consumers across the country are actually likely to face a\u00a027.29% increase next year, which is the proposed tariff for municipalities.<\/p>\n

A separate report by the Rapport <\/a><\/strong>newspaper confirmed the leaked documentation and highlighted that following a\u00a0recent Supreme Court of Appeal ruling, Eskom will effectively be able to ask for a 50% increase in electricity tariffs for the 2018-19 financial year.<\/p>\n

Energy expert Chris Yelland told Rapport that the two tariff increase applications which may now be processed amount to R43 billion. He also expects Eskom to apply for another tariff adjustment later this year.<\/p>\n

Combining the increases, Yelland estimated that it would mean a 50% increase in South Africa\u2019s electricity tariffs.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe confirmed the proposal’s existence but emphasised that the document was not the actual request to Nersa, but rather a preliminary plan given to Treasury and the SA Local Government Association for feedback.<\/p>\n

He also noted said that the workforce reduction assumption relied only on attrition, not retrenchments and that the no jobs were at risk.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0Leaked emails show exactly how the Guptas captured Eskom: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom\u2019s plans for a 20% tariff increase next year assumes higher economic growth than any analyst has previously forecast, and South Africans should brace themselves for much larger increases, according to a report by the City Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":56303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-178555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-active"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178555"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":178595,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178555\/revisions\/178595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}