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Smart meter at a home
National Treasury has reported significant progress in its smart meter rollout, with 67 000 already installed across 18 municipalities during the last financial year.
The project is part of a R2 billion government initiative, distributed over three years, to help municipalities with high Eskom debt.
National Treasury is looking to expand the programme this year, bringing more municipalities on board.
The programme is already showing positive results.
The smart meter grant project was introduced for the first time in the 2024/2025 budget with an allocation of R2 billion targeting 71 municipalities in three years.
By installing smart meters, the aim is to improve revenue collection, reduce electricity losses and give consumers real-time data on their usage, empowering them to manage their own consumption more effectively.
Sadesh Ramjathan, the Director of Local Government at National Treasury says the programme is already showing positive results with 18 municipalities covered in the first year.
“The municipality that is under intervention is Enoch Mgijima in the Eastern Cape. The eight municipalities that we targeted last year was Bela Bela, Modimolle, Mookgophong, Makana, Sol Plaatjie.”
Ramjathan adds: “The two municipalities that we went into detail is the Sol Plaatjie and Bela Bela and we could see that the installation of the smart metre in these spaces have helped these municipalities with payment to Eskom. And these municipalities have also received the one-third right off for good performance. The one third debt right off. So, we can see improvement, but we’re just trying to verify the other municipalities that have been receiving the installations through the grant.”
National Treasury is looking to expand the programme this year, bringing more municipalities on board and expanding the scope.
Ramjathan says, “What we are trying to target now beside the households, In the first year, we’ve only targeted single phase electricity metres in households. We’ve changed the framework in Dora in this current year to include water metres, include single phase, electricity three phase electricity, as well as Cape Town metres. We also have realised that targeting the three phase and the large power users within the mipal space is also a bigger benefit because they may be the biggest bigger culprits in the space of municipalities.”
R500 million was spent in 2024/25 for eight municipalities while R650 million is targeted for the second year with R800 million in the final year.
The money is an indirect grant paid to service providers not the municipality directly.
Ramjathan says, “We are implementing the space of the municipality, but we pay the service provider directly. The seven service providers are Vodacom, MTN, Cigicell, Landis Sangria, Isandiso Pipelines & Engineering, African Metering Solutions and Conlog. As the project moves into its second phase, the National Treasury says it has not been a smooth sail in some municipalities with resistance from community members.”
Ramjathan adds: “In the first in the first year of implementation, we found that as much as we left the community consultation and the community strategy up to the municipality to implement, we found that some municipalities have been very poor at doing the proper consultation. And then once the installation started, the service provider experience resistance from the community. So, in this current year we’ve made a conscious decision that there’s a few pre-installation activities that need to take place. And one of them is to make sure that there’s a proper public consultation.”
Community members have been urged to rally behind the project as the country looks to modernise electricity management in the coming years with 11 municipalities targeted for next phase including Endumeni, Enoch Mgijima and Gauteng’s Mogale City.
Meter rollout | National treasury reports significant progress
