LETTER: Paying users will leave Eskom

As with Telkom, which thought it had an indefinite monopoly, eventually people will find an affordable workaround to soaring Eskom tariffs. Paying electricity users will try to get off the grid, which will leave Eskom with only the nonpayers.

If it penalises people for installing solar panels and using Eskom for backup, by upping the connection costs, they will just disconnect from the grid and find another backup electricity source. Municipalities might create that backup with pump storage, which would be the most efficient means, or gated estates could form mini-grids, or each house could do their own thing.

Even the “good” municipalities such as the City of Cape Town are too used to having a moneymaking monopoly, but they too are learning the hard way that South Africans are gatvol. No matter how many rules and regulations they put up to slow down self-generation, it will happen because the electricity charges are just too high.

Once a customer gets off the grid and is bitter and twisted about the way they were dealt with, they will never go back. As with Telkom, nobody will want to have anything to do with it.

Rob Fisher
Via email

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