Prepaid power tariffs up 30pc

Prepaid Zesa tariffs were raised by around 30 percent from yesterday with the 200 unit package used by many households rising from just under $870 to $1 127.

The new pricing, including the levy, sees the first 50 units, or kilowatt hours, rising to $2,25/kWh. The next 50 cost $4,51/kWh. The next 100 units cost $7,89/kWh.

The next two bands, which still benefit from some cross subsidy, see the third 100 units a month costing $11,26/kWh and the fourth 100 units costing $12,94/kWh. Everything after that costs $13,50/kWh. So buying 300 units a month now costs $2 253 and 400 units a month costs $3 547. You must add $1 350 for every block of 100 units after that.

A kilowatt hour is the amount of electricity consumed by a 1 000 watt appliance for one hour. So a small hotplate would use around one unit for hour it was switched on.

But a LED 7W bulb, about the brightest easily available, can be left on for almost 143 hours before it has used one unit, that is it uses about 1 unit every six days if never switched off.

The scaled tariff uses some of the money from the highest energy users to give everyone some benefit in the lower usage bands, and to allow the very poor to have at least the minimum amount they need, that 50 unit bottom band.-herald.cl.zw