Prepaid electricity meters: No extension for the November 2024 deadline

Eskom has informed more than six million prepaid electricity users that the deadline of November 24, 2024, for updating the Token Identifier will not be extended.

After the deadline, metres will no longer accept electricity tokens unless they are updated to Key Revision Number (KRN) 2. So, how does one update their prepaid electricity metre? 

ESKOM WILL NOT EXTEND DEADLINE FOR PREPAID ELECTRICITY METRE UPDATES 

The power utility said the recording affects approximately 6.9 million customers in areas that it supplies. 

“Failure to recode by the deadline will prevent customers from loading electricity tokens, rendering their metres inoperable,” Eskom said. 

To make things easier, Eskom said it has already prepared 97% of the prepaid electricity metres by pre-coding them so customers can complete the process themselves. 

This do-it-yourself process requires customers to purchase credit tokens from authorised vendors. After that, they will receive two sets of 20-digit codes to enter into their metres for the update.

WHY SHOULD METRES BE UPDATED?

Eskom said all prepaid electricity metres based on Standard Transfer Specification (STS) technology will stop accepting new credit tokens because of the expiry of these vending codes. This will mean they will stop dispensing electricity after the existing credit is used up, thus making the meter inactive.

Each credit token has a unique token identifier (TID) encoded in the 20 digits to prevent token replay at the meter. The TID is referenced to a base date of 1993 and will run out of range in 2024 (known as the TID rollover event), thus causing the prepayment meter to stop accepting new tokens.

If your meter has not been recoded, it will not accept the tokens you have purchased, which means it will stop working. All prepaid meters must be recoded, whether you are an Eskom customer or a municipally supplied customer.

You can read more about this here.