POLL | What do you think of Eskom increasing electricity prices by more than 15%?
Eskom customers are in for a hefty rise in the price of electricity as the power utility is set to increase its tariff by 15.63% from the beginning of April.
The increase comes after the National Energy Regulator of SA (Nersa) agreed to Eskom’s request for a tariff increase for the 2021/2022 financial year.
BusinessLIVE reported that Eskom won a case in the high court last year, which allowed it to push for a higher tariff increase than Nersa was willing to allow.
The court ordered Nersa to add R10bn to Eskom’s allowable revenue to be recovered from tariff customers in the 2021/2022 financial year.
Eskom was permitted to recover R23bn in the 2021/2022 financial year as per a court judgment handed down in July 2020.
The court order stated that “an amount of 5.44c/kWh will be added to the average standard tariff for Eskom customers in the 2021/22 tariff year making the aggregate standard tariff for Eskom customers in the 2021/22 tariff year 134.30c/kWh”.
Load-shedding until 2022
Last year September, parliament's standing committee on appropriations said it expects power cuts to persist for at least the next year, warning that load-shedding up to stage 3 was likely to remain until 2022 depending on pressure on the system.
The committee said load-shedding will be required from February to March 2021 for the unplanned capability loss factor (UCLF) at 11,000MW.
Based on the same power losses, it is believed that load-shedding will also be required between June and July 2021.
Standing Committee on Appropriations, (National Assembly), [Follow-up meeting with Eskom on the financial issues and progress on Committee’s recommendations; and briefing by National Treasury on Eskom’s compliance with all the conditions attached to the S https://t.co/5oGTYXABCY
— Parliament of RSA (@ParliamentofRSA) September 2, 2020
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