South Africans who fail to recode their prepaid meters before the November 24 deadline may be forced to get a new meter that could cost them as much as R12,000.
With less than four days remaining until the deadline, Eskom is urging all prepaid electricity customers to update their meters immediately to avoid an unexpected loss of electricity.
The state utility said that meters still using KRN1 (Key Revision Number 1) will no longer accept electricity tokens after Sunday.
“This means that once your current credit is depleted, you will lose power, and the meter will become inoperable, necessitating a meter replacement that could cost up to R12,000, which the customer will have to pay,” Eskom said.
“Customers with meters still on KRN1 have likely not purchased electricity for more than six months or might be using unauthorised tokens bought from criminal syndicates,” Monde Bala, Eskom’s group executive for Distribution said.
He explained that to prevent the meter from becoming inoperable, losing power, and incurring replacement costs, it is critical that all customers, including those who have not purchased electricity in the last six months or more, to buy electricity tokens from authorised vendors by November 24, 2024.
“This will provide them with two sets of 20-digit codes needed to recode and update their meters. We started our public awareness campaigns back in August 2023 and we continue to ask users to come forward so we can offer all the help we have available,” he added.
How to check and recode your meter
To verify if your meter is ready:
- Enter 1844 6744 0738 4377 2416 on your meter keypad.
- If it shows 1 or 1.2, your meter still needs to be recoded.
- If it shows 2 or 2.2, your meter is already updated and requires no further action.
To complete the recoding:
- Enter the first 20 digits of your recode token.
- Enter the second 20 digits of your recode token.
- Finally, enter the 20-digit token from your latest electricity purchase to recharge your meter.
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