We know the frustration of load shedding to your household, not to mention the financial losses to your business, and on top of that electricity prices went up with 168% since 2008! 

We have the solution!

Pay once off for a Solar System and get off the grid, or pay it off for about the same monthly amount of money that you are paying now to Eskom, but with the difference that you will have an uninterrupted power supply, that your monthly payments will not increase for the entire period that you have agreed to, and once your system is paid off, your electricity is free for years to come!!

We offer normal bank interest rates, and protection insurance on your loan in case of death, disablement or retrenchment, which means your outstanding debt on your loan will be paid, should you not be able to make your loan payments. 

All our products carry a warranty. We do not accept any liability for incorrect installations where we are not an active party in the installation. 

We cannot guarantee the functioning or performance of a system if our product/s are not used and/or are mixed with other components not endorsed by us.

Our Lithium Batteries, for example, carry a 10 year warranty and giving 6000 cycles @ 80% DOD, this battery offers the best value for money

Any consumption above 500kWh is also subject to a network surcharge of 6c/kWh. The above comparison also does not take into account the effect of the municipal surcharge. Because of the fixed nature of this charge, its impact is outsized on those households who use less electricity.

A household using 300kWh a month will see an effective 66% increase in what they spend on electricity, more than five times higher than the 12% increase on the underlying tariff.

 

A major-metro trend

Johannesburg and Tshwane have become the second and third major metros to introduce a fixed monthly charge for prepaid customers. Last year, the City of Cape Town introduced a ‘home user tariff’ of R150 per month for prepaid customers whose houses were valued at over R1 million (credit customers paid the tariff regardless of the value of their property). From this month, the Cape Town tariff increases to R163.32.

City Power has not explained the reasons for introducing this tariff, but the City of Cape Town says in an explanatory document that “the service charge helps to maintain the infrastructure of our grid, including power lines, substations, transformers and electricity meters … Some 25% goes toward the maintenance of the grid, 65% to Eskom and 10% to the rates account.”

It adds that: “Due to the decline in usage, it is not possible to rely on electricity consumption to cover fixed costs as this will lead to unequal distribution of costs among the customer base.

 

Maintaining the ‘incentive’ to save electricity

“A hybrid tariff such as the home user tariff, which has a fixed cost but also looks at usage, will help cover the cost of energy purchases from Eskom so residents still have a financial incentive to save electricity. You will also be protected to some extent from future price shocks as a result of declining sales. Such shocks are a reality and we need to do everything that we can to mitigate against this. Due to the decline, we also need to create more certainty in the income that we get and a fixed cost is necessary to do this.”

Cape Town also points to the “model where fixed charges are recouped separately” already being “implemented by Eskom, Johannesburg City Power, and the City of Mangaung, among others”. It says the “municipality also previously had a service charge until 2011, when it was discontinued as a result of a regulatory requirement” and that in 2016, “Nersa [National Energy Regulator of South Africa] gave the go-ahead for the reimplementation of a fixed charge”.

 

Joburg’s financial pressures

Joburg City Power is clearly facing similar challenges. In a note to residents, Ward 117 councillor Tim Truluck points to the City Power 2019 Business Plan which states: “City Power has not been able to meet its revenue for a while. City Power used to have a cash coverage of three days and now it is an estimated -33 days. City Power has insufficient funds to meet its financial obligations in the short term.” He also cites a City Power document from March: “City Power will continue to assess ways in which the residential prepaid tariff can be better aligned to the residential conventional tariff.”

Already, City Power’s post-paid/conventional residential customers pay a service charge and a capacity charge each month. From July 1, this ranges between R631.17 and R805.41 per month (including Vat), depending on supply and phase usage. For a basic residential connection (single-phase 60 amp), the increase on the service and capacity charge is 13% from last year.