No electricity tariff increase for most municipalities on 1 July today

VAAL TRIANGLE - The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Friday afternoon ordered that only those municipalities that have done cost-of-supply studies are entitled to a tariff increase on 1 July today. This follows the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa)'s announcement just hours earlier on Friday, stating that it has approved the tariff applications for 178 municipal distributors. The order comes after Afriforum challenged Nersa’s methodology used when considering the applications. The challenge comes from a 2022 court order that set aside the guideline and benchmark method used by Nersa to approve municipal tariffs in the past. The new regulations require municipalities to do cost-of-supply studies, but only 66 did so. The court set aside a methodology Nersa hastily put together to accommodate the non-compliant municipalities. It gives the municipalities 60 days to submit compliant applications to Nersa, which the regulator must consider within 30 days.

However, Moneyweb reports that chances are this will not be of assistance since such a study can take a year to complete, including the tender process to appoint service providers, the study itself, and the consultation process before it is approved by the council.

PHOTO: (Supplied)