On Friday, 13 July 2018, the Erongo Regional Electricity Distributor Pty (Ltd), which is commonly known as Erongo RED announced an average 4% tariff increase for the 2018/2019 financial.

Speaking at the Press conference, the Chief Executive Officer of Erongo RED, Mr. Fessor Mbango said that the 4% average increase is a weighted average of different tariff categories. “The new tariffs will apply to all customer categories in the Erongo region except for some mining companies that are directly fed by NamPower,” Mbango said.

The increase came into effect as of the 1^st of July 2018 after ECB carefully reviewed and approved Erongo RED’s application to increase with a 4%. This came after the national utility, NamPower announced a 5% tariff increase for the financial year 2018/2019. According to Mbango, the impact on customers will vary depending on the capacity on which customers are connected as well as their consumption patterns.

Mbango further announced that apart from the new tariffs, that the current block tariffs scheme (including blocks) will be reduced from 0-150 to 0-100 on the first block. The second block will be reduced from 151-650 to 101-500 and the last block from 650 +to 500+.

There will also be limitations to enforce controls over social tariffs effective 1 July 2018. Erongo RED reduced the current subsidy on up to 30 Amp to 20Amp.  Customers currently on the 30 Amps prepaid social tariff will no longer qualify for the subsidy. They are encouraged to visit the nearest pay point to re-apply for 20 Amps in order to qualify for the new up to 20Amp prepaid social tariff. Thus, customers will have to reduce their circuit breaker from 30 Amp to 20 Amp. Erongo RED will carry the initial cost of the circuit breaker reduction.  Mbango said that the purpose of this limitation is to control the misuse of the social tariff and to ensure that only the pro-poor benefit from this tariff.