How is the electrical meter market in South Africa?

[nick-star]

Hi! Everyone. I'm nick. Hope we may become friends through this forum.

I'm wondering about the market of electrical meters in south africa.
Since South africa is a developed and rich country, how come the prepaid meter market is so small? Is it the condition that the goverment regards the electricity as a kind of welfare to let the people use electricity freely?

I saw many kinds of prepaid meters in south africa. So here comes another problem. Why the goverment of South africa don't raise a tender to call the good companies together to unify the meters in South Africa?

[nick-star]

hope to find someone that is familiar to this subject.

[ColinK]

As far as i know,any contractor that would be interested in doin meters would only be able to do meters in there own area like example,edenvale contractors can only do them in edednvale as they work on codes for the meters,then another thing if im not mistaken council does the installation for like R650 so it would in most cases not be profitable for contractors,but i rate if council signs contract with 1 contracting company to do all the meters in one specific area it might be worth it,but this would be best for smaller companies i reckon....just my thought

[nick-star]

thanks a lot. I really appreciate your reply.
From your answer, I read out that the South African goverment is protecting many small companies.And the fees of installation is too high for the contractors.

So I have some questions, is the standard of meter the same in South Africa? Is it a standard that each manufacturer has to follow?

And also is the council in charge of installation? Why don't they install themselves without paying the council? Or they don't have the technology??

Thanks in advance.

[murdock]

do they have heaven in china to nick or is that just a suburb?

[AmithS]

Hi Nick,

Where are you from?

[Sparks]

Untill the beginning of this month you had to pay the municipality for a conversion to prepaid. You also had to get a private contractor to install the base of the meter and issue a COC for the supply.

The new thing is a PLC101 Energy Controller from Unique Mbane. These meters are being installed free of charge to all users. Irrespective of whether you have prepaid or credit meter. It is about time this gets done. The outstanding accounts amount to astronomical figures and once everyone has a prepaid meter the money will come in because there is a bylaw here which states that the municipality can take up to 60% of your recharge coupon until they have recovered all outstanding debt.

[nick-star]

do they have heaven in china to nick or is that just a suburb?

you seem to have been to china, don't you? I'm not familiar with this forum yet.

[nick-star]

Hi Nick,

Where are you from?

Hi JWalker.

I'm from China with greetings to you.

[nick-star]

Untill the beginning of this month you had to pay the municipality for a conversion to prepaid. You also had to get a private contractor to install the base of the meter and issue a COC for the supply.

The new thing is a PLC101 Energy Controller from Unique Mbane. These meters are being installed free of charge to all users. Irrespective of whether you have prepaid or credit meter. It is about time this gets done. The outstanding accounts amount to astronomical figures and once everyone has a prepaid meter the money will come in because there is a bylaw here which states that the municipality can take up to 60% of your recharge coupon until they have recovered all outstanding debt.

Thank you! Brother. I feel that the market of prepaid meters in South Africa is still in a mess. Is Conlog popular in South Africa?
Maybe next month I will fly to South Africa and investigate the market there myself.

[Justloadit]

There are a number of local manufacturers of prepaid meters in RSA. To get your meter into the market, you going to have to submit it to SABS for testing, and then get SANAS approval, irrespective if you have other testing laboratories certification. You then have to look out for tenders, in which the meters are requested.

Too much hard work, jumping over hoops and other necessary requirements in my view for this extremely competitive small and closed market.

[nick-star]

There are a number of local manufacturers of prepaid meters in RSA. To get your meter into the market, you going to have to submit it to SABS for testing, and then get SANAS approval, irrespective if you have other testing laboratories certification. You then have to look out for tenders, in which the meters are requested.

Too much hard work, jumping over hoops and other necessary requirements in my view for this extremely competitive small and closed market.

It seems that it's hard and troublesome to sell prepaid meters in South Africa. I can also see many manufacturers' websites on Aardvark. But most of them are small companies. So I'm thinking that since the electricity in South Africa is not enough,maybe the government would prevail the prepaid meters nation wide.