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CENTLEC & BCCI FUNCTION
18 August
2008
President Hotel
Return to Recent
Events
The BCCI & CENTLEC
hosted a business breakfast at the President Hotel on Monday 18
August. The main focus of the event was for CENTLEC to share the
latest information with the business community of Mangaung on, amongst
others:
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The latest
developments on the National front regarding the shortage of
electricity
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Discussions on the
new tariffs implemented from 1 July 2008 and how it might affect
businesses
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Successes CENTLEC
had to date on the management of the electricity crisis.
Businesses would in
future have incentives to conserve electricity during peak hours (7:00
to 10:00 and 18:00 to 20:00), thus contributing to the national
savings initiatives and to be able to manage their monthly expenditure
on energy costs more effectively.
This stylish business
event was very well supported, and we were fortunate to have had 5
guests from overseas visiting Bloemfontein at the time as guests of
Agra Forum. This is an organisation focusing on the development in
farming in South Africa and all over the world. Four of the guests
were from New Zealand and 1 from Germany.
CENTLEC INTRODUCES
NEW ERA IN ELECTRICITY SUPPLY
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As the retail
supplier of electricity to Bloemfontein / Mangaung as the capital of
the Free State and to the Mangaung Municipal area, including
Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu as the hub of the strongest economic
region in the province, CENTLEC is striving to deliver the best
possible service package. In doing so it has, however, to take into
account the wholesale environment of electricity supply in South
Africa being run by Eskom.
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In order to
implement the changes in the external (wholesale) electricity supply
situation, CENTLEC took a decision that a mechanism needs to be
devised to identify poor and smaller customers and included in
the report to NERSA to ensure that poorer customers are not affected
negatively. To distinguish between Lifeline customers and standard
customers, the selection criteria would be that any user on a
prepayment meter with an average annual consumption level of less
that 500 units per month be supplied on these lifeline tariffs.
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These Lifeline
tariffs would not be subjected to further increases and labeled as
the Lifeline tariffs. All prepayment customers with an average
annual monthly consumption of more than 500 units shall be supplied
at the normal domestic home power tariffs applicable. Thus the
same tariffs used for credit meters.
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The prepayment
vending system will therefore charge a daily fixed cost as is the
case with Homepower tariffs (on a time between purchase transactions
basis) plus a unit cost applicable to this category of customer. The
previous monthly fixed charge would therefore be reduced to a daily
fixed cost. When purchasing electricity the system will calculate
the number of days since the last purchase and use that as a norm to
calculate the portion of the fixed cost payable with the current
transaction. All the remaining tariffs would be subjected to
the additional tariff increase.
POWER CONSERVATION
PROGRAMME (PCP)
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Bulk purchases by
CENTLEC from Eskom are levied at TOU tariffs for the past 6 years.
The impact is that energy is not levied at a flat rate over a
24-hour cycle, but with higher tariffs during the 5 peak hours per
day and lower tariffs during the 11 off-peak hours at night. The
remainder of the 24 hours is levied at standard tariffs.
Larger
customers would in future have the same incentive to conserve
electricity peak hours (7h00 to 10h00 and 18h00 to 20h00) and thus
contribute to the national savings initiatives.
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Suitable metering
have
already been installed for the top 180 bulk customers and the
remainder of the bulk customers would be converted to TOU tariffs
during the course of the financial year. The YOU tariff was designed
to be revenue neutral pending the efficient use of electricity by
the customer. The customer would have control over the impact of
this tariff change on his monthly expenditure.
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The daily readings
of the bulk meters are published on the CENTLEC website to allow
customers to manage their energy costs.
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Meetings with
organized business and commerce
are currently arranged by CENTLEC to inform bulk customers about the
impact of TOU tariffs on energy costs.
For detailed
information on the information shared during this function, you can
download the presentation by Mr Leon Kritzinger or you can refer to
the CENTLEC website at
www.centlec.co.za. You can also call Mr Chris van der Westhuizen
on 051-4092323 or the Customer Care Centre on 051 – 4092251/2 OR
0861220244
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