Ever Heard Of Prepaid Electricity?

Discussion in Gas & Electricity started by ptahm22 • Jan 4, 2017.

  1. ptahm22

    ptahm22Active Member

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    In our country there is a new system of electricity where you pay before using. We call them tokens. If your token is over the power goes off in your house until you buy another token. Most of us use them since you are able to manage your usage depending on the number of tokens you have and it minimizes accumulation of bills.
    Is there such a system in your country?
     
  2. Decentlady

    DecentladyActive Member

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    I have used this system of prepaid electricity before.

    It is convinient and much easier to monitor I must say.

    You can even save a lot through it. I wish that my present area had a similar facility.
     
  3. Kaushik Angara

    Kaushik AngaraActive Member

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    That is such an innovative concept. It is just like a prepaid mobile recharge. Very unique and extremely beneficial. You can choose the tokens according to your power usage. It helps you monitor your usage closely and plan accordingly. However, the power going off is a bit too much, there must be a notification or a message saying that the limit is going to expire soon and you must renew before you can use it again.
     
  4. moondebi

    moondebiActive Member

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    We do not have this facility here.

    Our electricity service is like post-paid connection where you need to pay the bill depending upon the usage. The way our tariff is calculated, the token system is not possible to introduce either. Here the rate increases step by step where the tariff is different for every slab.

    However, the token system is a good option for domestic consumers though.
     
  5. Jessika

    JessikaActive Member

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    Most electricity here is paid on monthly or quarterly bills, but some facilities, especially rental properties have electric meters that work liked this. Either you put in coins in the old-style ones, or you can get charge keys. There are shops, including newsagents where you can put more credit on your key and then put it back in the meter for more electricity. British Gas, for example offers a service literally called "Pay as you go electricity" which uses a smart key combined with your meter.
     
  6. luckycharm

    luckycharmActive Member

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    Wow, that's a great initiative indeed. This way we can also control wastage of electricity to a great extent. Like pre-paid SIMs we will be cost conscious. Do we get any alerts about the balance we have in this system? If that is there it would be stupendous as it can remind us to be in limit.

    This system has not been introduced in our country yet. In fact I am hearing it for the first time here. We get bi-monthly bills here and if we do not pay by due date electricity will be shut off the very next day. They are very particular about this.
     
  7. kamai

    kamaiActive Member

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    Such system does exsist here in the newer houses or if the house owner decides to install a new electric system. I used to rent a house with such system but to me it wasn't too convinient or maybe because I lacked responsibility. I stayed without electricity twice since I had forgotten to go load the card we received with more points. Other than that I think it's a good idea, I think it just takes some getting used to. This way one is more cautious of how much electricity is used.
     
  8. Alexandoy

    AlexandoyWell-Known Member

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    There is a prepaid electricity scheme in the depressed areas of Metro Manila. The poor families are the ones who fail to pay their electric bills on time so the power provider here installed prepaid meters. From what I heard, they are using cards like the phone cards that they swipe to the scanner of the electric meter. When the meter runs out of load, it will automatically cut off the electricity. But I don’t think ordinary homes (lower middle class and up) will be using that scheme for now because it is quite a shame.
     
  9. littlewitch66

    littlewitch66Active Member

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    This has been available in the UK for many years now and when I moved into my present house it had a prepaid meter. I checked and found that although it maybe convenient to pay in smaller amounts by charging the key as and when you need it, it is actually a more expensive way of paying for electricity. I used to find it annoying when the meter got low and I sometimes didn't have time to charge the key.

    I now have a monthly direct debit payment scheme set up and much prefer this as I know that as long as I pay my bills I will never run out.
     
  10. harijobs

    harijobsActive Member

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    In our country, we pay for how much we use it monthly. So, if you have a large house and lot of electronic appliances running then you will have to play more. Here it depends on your income level too. :)
     
  11. explorerx7

    explorerx7Active Member

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    This facility is available in my country. It has been instituted in areas where people have illegally tapped into the formal electrical supply and are utilizing the service and not paying for the usage. They supply in these areas were reformulated so that the potentials subscribers to the service would no longer be able to easily acquire the illegal service and they would now be able to access prepaid service and top up when necessary similar to the telephone airtime system.