First round of Eskom tariff hikes to take effect Tuesday
Eskom's first round of electricity
tariff hikes will kick in on Tuesday.
The 12.7% increase will affect some three million residential customers who receive their power directly from the utility.
Chris Yelland, an energy analyst and managing director of EE Business Intelligence, said they conducted a study on the tariff increases' impacts on Eskom’s direct residential customers.
The study found that some customers may pay more than the approved increase.
"The majority of Eskom direct customers are poorer customers in rural areas with a prepaid meter, which is a 20-amp prepaid meter,” Yellend explained.
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“So, there are also quite a lot of residential customers in the more urban areas that are on the home of like 60-amp meter.
"They generally also have a prepaid meter, but they could be on a credit meter, and those are the most common tariffs and those that have experienced significant changes.
"Therefore, poorer customers would experience higher price increases than the average of 12.74%, whilst larger and generally richer customers will experience lower price increases than the 12.74%."
You can find the document here.
