The smart meters, which were meant to be the city council’s answer to meter reading errors, have left Joburg residents at their wits end with many complaining about receiving incorrect bills.
Ward 117 councillor Tim Truluck said he had received numerous complaints from residents claiming that since the installation of smart meters they were being charged inflated rates due to estimations.
One re4sident, Jenny van der Leij said her smart meter screen went blank last year and her ongoing attempts to have it fixed had failed.
“My electricity bill gives estimates every now and again and I email to complain every time. The bill itself varies so I am not in control of what I am being charged for as I cannot read the meter,” she said.
Van der Leij also expressed concern about the way the smart meters were installed.
What worries me more than anything is that the contractors that came to work on the system are not fully qualified, certified electricians. It cost us a lot to have our connections repaired and made safe when they first installed the meter.”
She added that an electrician had informed her that he would not be prepared to give her a clearance certificate because of the way it was installed.
Other problems included new meters not being put on to the system when the old ones were removed, resulting in estimates being sent out because no readings were taken; bad cellphone reception in many areas resulted in the remote readings not being sent; the old meters were not removed from the system, resulting in people being billed on both old and new readings.
However, City Power claimed that these were merely teething problems.
“Due to its sheer magnitude, it is inevitable that the implementation of this project of this scale would experience teething issues,” said a City Power’s managing director Sicelo Xulu said in a statement.
According to Xulu, the number of meters with problems made up only seven percent of the 30 344 meters installed for domestic use.
The utility said the seven percent included 394 instances where meters had been tampered with, 620 cases where meters had been found to have communication problems and 1 230 applications to convert to prepaid mode.
However, some of the technical challenges, including poor network signal in the areas where the meters were installed, beyond City Power’s control, he said.
“Despite the negligible number of faulty meters, City Power is not underrating the problem and has noted the concerns raised and is putting remedial measures in place to address these concerns.”
The entity did not respond to specific questions that were posed regarding smart meters.
To date, City Power has installed about 50 000 smart meters across the city and of those, 30 344 were for domestic use.
