By Anita Dangazele
- New Eskom rules mean a bigger part of every bill is now a fixed fee that stays the same no matter how much power you use.
- A sociologist says many working-class areas still get planned power cuts, even as their bills keep going up.
Using less electricity used to mean a smaller bill. That’s changing.
Eskom has changed how it charges for electricity. A bigger part of every bill is now a fixed fee, an amount you pay every month no matter how much power you actually use. In some cases, that fixed fee has gone up by close to 19%. At the same time, the price for the electricity you actually use has been lowered a bit, to balance things out. What this means in practice: if you cut back on electricity to save money, you won’t save as much as you used to, because a bigger chunk of your bill doesn’t change no matter what you do.
This comes on top of price increases most households have already felt this year. Eskom’s direct customers paid 8.76% more from April. Most other households, who buy electricity through their municipality, paid a separate 9.01% more from July.
University of Johannesburg sociologist Luke Sinwell says the rising cost of electricity is putting too much pressure on working-class households. He says that even though the country has mostly stopped load shedding, thanks to more power being available, many working-class areas still experience something similar. It’s called load reduction, planned power cuts used in specific areas to reduce strain on the grid. In other words, some of the poorest households are paying more for electricity that still isn’t fully reliable.
Eskom says it won’t raise the subsidised rates used by low-income and rural households. How much your own bill goes up still depends on where you live and how your municipality charges for electricity.
Pictured above: A bigger part of your electricity bill is now a fixed fee you pay no matter how much power you use. That means using less electricity may not save you as much money as before.
Image source: File
