NERSA REVIEW ESKOM'S TARIFFS FOR THE PERIOD 01 APRIL 2012 TO 31 MARCH 2013

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) at its meeting held today, Friday, 09 March 2012, approved an average price increase of 16.0% on Eskom's application for the tariffs review for the period 01 April 2012 to 31 March 2013.

On 02 March 2012, NERSA received Eskom's application for a review of Eskom's tariffs for the period 01 April 2012 to 31 March 2013. In its application, Eskom proposed that the 25.9% average price increase as approved by NERSA for the 2012/13 financial year be reduced by 9.9 percentage points to an average price increase of 16.0% on reduced sales volumes.

Based on the available information and the analysis of Eskom's application, the Energy Regulator further decided as follows:

1. That the allowed revenues, standard average prices and average prices for the period 01 April 2012 to 31 March 2013 is as detailed in the table below:

Table 1: 2012/13 allowed revenues and standard average prices

2. That the revision of the allowed revenue requirement represents a reduction of revenues of R11 153m from the MYPD2 approved revenues of R141 411m for the 2012/13 financial year. The adjustments for the reduction of revenues will be made up of the following:

(i) Re-phased equity returns of the shareholder of R8,105m

(ii) Portion of the balance required from the Regulatory Clearing Account (RCA) of R3,048m

3. That based on the revised allowed revenues of R130,258m and on the sales volumes of 214,737GWh, the revised average price increase is 16.0% and the schedule of retail tariffs for the various tariff categories will be increased as follows:

Table 2: 2012/13 revised retail tariff increases

4. That the Eskom Inclining Block Tariff rates applicable for the 2012/13 financial year are as follows:

Table 3: 2012/13 revised IBT rates

5. That the municipal tariff guidelines increase for the financial year 2012/13 is 11.03%. 

6. That the municipal tariff benchmarks applicable for the 2012/13 financial year are as follows:

Table 4: 2012/13 revised Municipal Tariff Benchmarks

The legal basis for the decision of the Energy Regulator to approve electricity price increases is derived from the National Energy Regulator Act, 2004 (Act No. 40 of 2004) (‘the NERSA Act') and the Electricity Regulation Act, 2006 (Act No. 4 of 2006) (‘the Act'). The procedure followed in deciding the price is derived from the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, 2000 (Act No.3 of 2000) ("PAJA").

Detailed Reasons for Decision can be viewed on NERSA's website (www.nersa.org.za) under Regulator Decisions>Electricity from Monday, 12 March 2012.

Statement issued by Mr Charles Hlebela, NERSA Head of Communications, March 9 2012

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