Residents who have converted to prepaid metres are still spending excessively in winter.
This statement is made by Mr Shadrack Palmer, Chief Commercial Officer at FNB Service Provider.
He said shared some ideas on how consumer’s can lower their electricity bills this winter.
“Always use energy efficient lights and avoid switching on lights in rooms that you aren’t using at night. Consumers that use gas heaters and stoves can reduce their electricity bills substantially in winter. Although converting to gas may require a large investment initially, consumers will save in the long term,” he reckoned.
Palmer is of the opinion that installing a geyser timer to manage consumption during peak times can help consumers to save.
“Old freezers generally use more electricity than new ones as they work harder to maintain cool temperature. Consider servicing or replacing your old fridge to save on electricity cost.”
He raised an interesting point for debate when he said appliances that are not completely switched off and remain on standby mode such as TV, hi-fi, decoder and your microwave, collectively consume a lot of electricity at the end of the month.
These tips are valuable as Mr Theo van Vuuren, municipal manager also urges consumers to use electricity sparingly.
“My plea to our community is to pay their accounts and specifically to use electricity sparingly this winter. We do need to reduce demand as in addition to the cost element associated with high utilisation, our available capacity is still lower than what we need and this will lead to power outages. As municipality we may be forced to do load limitation and load shedding this winter to curb demand within affordable levels.”
The eMalahleni Local Municipality faced a daunting task paying their Eskom account after they defaulted on the Eskom payments as the difference between what the municipality charged and what they could recover reached nearly R80-million per month.
Mr Theo van Vuuren, municipal manager, anticipates that this figure will rise sharply between now and September.
“We are looking at an increase to about R150-million per month,” Van Vuuren said.
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