Prepaid electricity metering software update underway

GEORGE NEWS - The George Municipality is updating prepaid electricity metering software for its approximately 49 500 prepaid consumers. The current software will expire in November 2024, not only in George, but in the entire country.

Failure to update before the deadline will leave consumers unable to recharge their meter with the new tokens and thus without electricity.

Standard Transfer Specification (STS) prepaid meters use encrypted tokens to transfer purchased units to the meters. Each token is encoded with a unique Token Identifier (TID), which has a limited range and will be implemented on 24 November 2024.

After this date, all STS compliant meters will stop accepting credit tokens, unless an intervention takes place. Therefore all these meters need to receive the TID rollover key change with a new base date before the said date.

Failing to act timeously will have a negative impact on consumers as they will be unable to load electricity on the meter.

Meter replacements

"Households that are in line for the ongoing municipal meter replacement programme must be aware that all new meters installed will eventually be updated, but we are working through older stock now," said media liaison officer Ntobeko Mangqwengqwe.

"Older stock, even though newly installed, would need to be updated. The new compliant-ready meters are in the municipality stock stores now. Some of the field staff are already updating the meters if they are on-site doing a meter change or site inspection."

As the update unfolds, consumers must ensure that all their old pre-paid electricity tokens are entered before the update is completed, as the old tokens will not work once the update has been done.

Details about the specific dates of updates in various areas in George will be released in due course. The teams from the service providers Alegro and Ontec, as well as the municipal team assisting them, can be identified by their shirts and/or jackets with the name "Alegro", ID cards and correspondence confirming their assignment to conduct the audit.

Covid-19 health and safety protocols will be adhered to.