City Power gets smart about its billing

The City of Johannesburg wants to finally put all its electricity billing problems behind it with the introduction of new smart meters by its utility City Power.

For years now the city has been trying to improve its chaotic billing system that saw residents in parts of Soweto and surrounding townships take to the streets.

Former President Nelson Mandela became a victim of City Power's billing crisis when a letter of notice, showing his property was R6468.48 in arrears in municipal rates, was sent to his house.

The city has struggled to bill residents correctly due to the failure of its R580-million Project Phakama - an IT system which was meant to integrate all municipal services accounts into one billing database. Instead, the system was unable to process meter-reading data, resulting in estimates being used to bill residents.

The smart meters are being piloted on 2500 customers. The new meters allow the business customers to view their consumption, forecast and compare their usage with that of other businesses.

Yesterday, City Power said it plans to roll out 50000 of these meters in this financial year.

Already, 500 smart meters have been installed in Ferndale, northern Johannesburg, and this will be extended to Northcliff, Craighall Park and Houghton. City Power plans to have a full rollout of the smart meters by 2015.

Automated meters report the exact amount of electricity used during a particular period, which means there will be no need for physical visits to the residents' property by City Power officials.

The meters contribute to billing accuracy as consumption is monitored in real time, meaning that estimated readings will scrapped.

The meters also sound an alarm in the case of a sudden power cut, including tampering with the system and illegal connections.

City Power would send SMSes to consumers with billing-related information, notifying them of power interruptions, and requesting them to reduce consumption

• City Power announced that an independent panel had cleared the entity of any wrongdoing in awarding a R1.25-billion tender to Edison Power in September last year.The Mail & Guardian alleged that there had been manipulation in the tender process so as to fix the tender for Edison Power. President Jacob Zuma's backer, Vivian Reddy, is chairman of the company.