Prepaid Water & Electricity Meter Services

Prepay always work better for consumers who want to take full control of their electricity account and energy usage. When monitoring your prepay consumption on a regular basis, you will begin to notice patterns in your day-to-day usage. Any variation from this pattern, such as a house guest, or a vacation where little energy is being used, will become evident as you monitor your account.

You can therefore make simple changes around your house or flat that produce visible energy savings. By looking at the display screen on the in-home keypad, you can actually see a change in your costs when you turn out unnecessary lights or adjust your geyser thermostat. When converting to pre-paid power, you'll always know how much you've spent and how much electricity you have left.

The electricity and water prepaid meters we supply to the various malls, office parks, light industrial and sectional- and full title complexes will empower your tenants to take absolute control of their monthly consumption. Tenants can personally monitor their own power usage, identify high-use periods and even cut back at necessary times to save both power and money.

Prepaid Meters are measuring devices with the potential to transform the way electricity is used. It provides additional intelligent functionality and features over those of the traditional old electromechanical electricity meters. Our complete prepaid electricity solution will empower you to take control of your power consumption, whether you're an individual, business or property owner.

Every property is unique. Therefore, we tailor our prepaid solutions to best-fit the specific requirements of your property layout, and utility mechanical/electrical systems based on your requests. We'll make sure that we deliver the systems and services that work best for you and your budget.

There are lots of advantages in having a prepayment meter installed, but there are also a couple of things to be aware of. You need to remember to keep your meter topped up as you have to pay in advance for the energy you use.

Why choose Pre-paid power:

• Save electricity due to awareness (have the ability to monitor your consumption on a daily basis)
• Be in total control of your consumption (Pay the amount you want and when you want)
• Build's trust between the body corporate and Tenants, as electricity billing is transparent.
• Eliminates unpleasant surprises like a big monthly bill
• No disconnection fees when you forget to make a payment
• No unexpected account debit adjustments
• More accurate meter readings due to advanced prepaid technology
• No "pay now" and resolve problems later
• No back charges on unused electricity
• Tenants can not run up debt on their electricity account
• No more calculations due to access problems
• No more 40 and 50 day consumption bills
• No more interest on arrears charges
• No more consumption disputes
• No more receiving of electricity paper bills
• Property management companies and Landlords have complete control
• Easy to install
• Vouchers widely available form leading outlets

Same Day Service:

Please note that Faxes and E-mails sent to purchase new credit from us will be processed within the same work day and are manually verified Mondays to Thursdays between 08h00 - 16h00, Fridays between 08h00 - 13h00 and on Saturdays, no phones will be answered, but purchase requests will still be processed between 09h00 - 13h00. purchase requests after hours until 19:00 in the evening shall carry a R10 after hours vending fee. If by 16h00 in the afternoon you have not received your purchassed power token earlier that same day - you may send a SMS to 082 - 419 4757 with the following sms info:

1. Complex Name,
2. Unit Number you stay in,
3. Amount Purchassed and
4. Bank Name. We will verify your purchased amount with the bank and SMS the token to your cellphone.

Basic pre-paid meter operation:

All prepaid meters in South Africa work on a virtual voucher system which is governed by the STS (Standard Transfer System) Association and Eskom. The pre-paid voucher is a 20 digit number, for example: "7564 8732 1748 9973 6683", which you enter on the keypad of your pre-paid meter and works in a similar way as prepaid airtime vouchers for cellphones. Once entered, the meter is credited with the amount of electricity purchased. To purchase electricity you will need the serial number for your meter.

The serial number can be found on the keypad of the meter or the meter card that will be supplied with the meter. The serial number has 11 digits e.g. 07065375618. This 11-digit prepaid meter number is a unique identification for your prepaid meter top-up account with Global International. When you buy a prepaid electricity voucher from us, or the shops, each electricity voucher is generated specific for your meter and cannot be used on any other customer's meter.

Please remember to always use this 11-digit meter number as a reference when making a payment. Your 11-digit prepaid meter number allows us to link your meter to your personal details and that of your property. Pre-paid meters work on the principle that a 20 digit electricity voucher is bought online, from the shops or straight from Global International and this voucher information is then transferred to your meter. The consumer enters this 20 digit voucher number via the keypad on the meter and the number of units bought is transferred to the meter and displayed in kWh units on the meter keypad.

The meter has been programmed with all the relevant details, including the tariff which is specific to the area of jurisdigtion the complex or building is situated. This means that even if you buy a prepaid electricity token from the shop vendor in Durban or Capetown but you stay in Pretoria - you will still receive the exact same amount of kWh units. As you use electricity, the meter measures the kWh consumption and based on the programmed tariff, it subtracts the cost of consumed electricity from your available credit balance.

As you use your kWh units, the units indicator will decrement until zero kWh units are reached. At this point the meter will automatically disconnect the electricity supply and you will have to buy more electricity. The units registered in the meter can at any time be increased by buying more electricity online, from the shops or straight from us .

Please note that you only need the Customer User Interface keypad unit to load new power, and secondly, to view how much kWh units are left on your meter. Remember that if for example, you have 300 kWh left on the meter and you unplug the keypad from the wall socket; your power will still be on and your prepaid meter will still consume electricity. The unplugged keypad will keep reflecting the frozen 300 kWh units left on your meter. Remember that the keypad is NOT A METER. Your actual prepaid meter is installed outside in the DB box.

The actual kWh units are consumed by the meter even if the keypad is unplugged from the wall. When you plug the Customer User Interface keypad back into the wall socket, the keypad LCD screen will still show the old amount of units left on your meter when you unplugged it two days ago or a week ago. To retrieve the latest ACTUAL kWh value left on your meter you will need to punch in any short code followed by the accept button.

Short codes are 3-digit number codes to retrieve valuble info from your meter installed outside. Short codes are printed on top of the plastic lid that cover's and protect's the keypad numbers. If the meter has run out of credit and the Customer User Interface keypad was unpluged - you will need to enter any short code to re-establish communication to the meter BEFORE entering an electricity token.

New Meter Installation - Start-off credit:

Your meter will contain an initial start-off credit of R100,00 worth of electricity. This is to ensure that you will have sufficient electricity during the period it will take you to top-up and load your own first electricity token. IMPORTANT: This start-off credit of R100,00 worth of electricity is NOT FREE !! When you make your first purchase on your side - this initial R100,00 electricity pre-credit will be deducted and you will receive a token for the differrence.

PROBLEM SOLVING: If your keypad do not want to accept your new power token you purchassed.

Your prepaid meter makes use of existing PLC (Power Line Communication) between the prepaid meter installed outside in the DB box and the keypad we supplied you with. To enable proper communication before you punch in your new power token, please make sure that:

1. You have punched the 20-digit token SMS'ed to your cellphone in correctly.
2. The keypad unit is plugged into the wall plug and the wallplug is switched on.
3. Make sure that no circuit breaker has tripped at the DB box inside your flat. If the breaker is off - communication is also cut off.
4. At the back of the keypad is the battery cover. The keypad works with four AA batteries. These batteries are NOT rechargeble batteries. Replace these normal batteries with new one's if you keep getting a "FAILED" messege when trying to load a newly purchassed power token.
5. Do not allow your prepaid meter to totally run out of power at all cost. If the power is cut off the keypad only rely on the batteries power to make proper communication with your meter installed outside. Should it happen that you get back from work and the prepaid power has run out on your meter and you keep getting a "FAILED" messege when trying to load a newly purchassed power token. Go to any other flat were the power is on and plug your keypad into their wallplug to load new power. Because the meter uses PLC - you may use any wallplug, even the basemet parking or front entrance wallplug to load new power.

Things to be aware of:

• If you leave your premises for several days, you must remember to credit your pre-paid meter card. This is because your credit is used to pay for your daily standing charge and any debt repayments – so if you don't charge your meter enough before going away, appliances that you may want to have on all the time (for example, freezers) may switch off.
• If you vacate your premises - the kWh units credit left on the pre-paid meter can not be credited, nor refunded to your account.
• If you apply for a pre-paid business installation – you will still need to pay the monthly city council fixed prescribed circuit breaker (also called a capacity) charge. This does not apply to residential pre-paid consumers.