Electricity prices to spike during this winter

Eskom has welcomed the decision by the Gauteng High Court to dismiss the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse’s (Outas) urgent application brought to interdict Eskom from implementing the approved tariff increase by 9.4% on April 1.

The court’s decision means that Eskom’s electricity tariff increase becomes effective immediately for its direct customers and on July 1 for municipal customers.

The chief financial officer of Eskom, Anoj Singh says, “Eskom is pleased with the decision of the court as this allows us to begin recovering the R11.2-billion revenue as approved by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa).

“We have cooperated with the legal process and we will continue to do so while also defending the process we have followed in the recovery of costs we incurred in the provision of electricity,” he says.

As residents of Ekurhuleni and thus municipal customers, Springsites can prepare themselves for the hefty hike at the beginning of July.

Residents are urged to use electricity sparingly and avoid high bills at the end of the month.

Here are some tips on how to use electricity sparingly during the cold winter months:

• Switch off devices when not in use.

• Use cold water for your laundry. A washing machine uses the same amount of electricity for a full load as it does for a single item, so keep dirty clothes until a full load has accumulated.

• Use electric heaters that are controlled by thermostats.

• Electric blankets are the cheapest way of warming the bed, but don’t keep them on throughout the night. Turn your electric blanket on for an hour or two just before bedtime to heat it up and then switch it off.

• Only heat rooms that you and your family are going to use.

• Never leave appliances such as TVs, computers and entertainment systems on standby mode. Remaining on standby mode, these appliances still use up to 15% of the electricity that they would normally use.

• Switch off lights in unoccupied rooms and replace incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) or light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

• Take a shower instead of a bath (a shower uses a lot less water than a bath), and consider installing an energy- and water-efficient shower head.