After the minister of Electricity and Energy, Dr. Mohamed Shaker confirmed in a statement that only the citizens themselves could control the value of their electricity bills, and stressed the importance of rationalizing consumption, “Trendify '' aimed to clarify electricity consumption, electricity meter readings and ways to reserve energy.
According to one of Giza’s electricity bill conductors, Abdel-Hakim Abd El Sarawy, each KiloWatt usage has a specific price calculation, called “chips”. If you have a digital electricity meter, your monthly electricity bill is calculated according to your usage of KiloWatts during the month, multiplied by 1.35 Egyptian pounds if your usage exceeds 650 KW or 1.45 pounds if you exceed 1000 KW.
If you have the card charged meter, it is the same calculation but once your charged balance is finished, it automatically deduces the leftover KiloWatt usage from your next recharge, but with the same chip level you had reached before your balance was consumed, added Abdel-Hakim.
“I usually receive complaints from the people I visit to gather the bill payments from, and they usually ask why the bill is so expensive, and I always try to explain that they could manage their usage in a way that makes the KiloWatts they consume reasonable,” said Abd El Sarawy. They would have 2 or 3 air conditioners working at the same time, which makes their consumption exceed their regular chip rate, therefore they get shocked when they see their bills.
Abd El Sarawy added that the power consumption registered by the Card-charged meter and the monthly registered meter are both calculated the same way, the only difference is that with the card, you are able to rationalize your consumption rather than being shocked with the bill at the end of the month.
“The billing system for a digital meter or a card-charged meter is the same, but there are two points of view. Some say that they prefer paying at the end of the month whatever the bill comes out to be and the rest could be averaged and distributed throughout the following months, but that means it could keep building up to large amounts. Others say that they prefer paying a specific amount upfront and managing their electricity usage according to the amount paid,” a real estate marketing company owner, Khaled Mohamed. He added that he thinks paying upfront with the Card-charged meter is better as the home-owner would be able to manage their usage and the government would gather its required amounts without delay.
“We tried both meters, but we were more at ease with the digital meter where we pay the bill by the end of each month and we have the option of dividing a large bill on the following months,” said a 3-floored family homeowner, Ahmed Abulnasr.
To preserve energy and reduce your electric consumption, try to reduce your usage of any electric device that consumes more energy than regular devices. Those devices are ones that produce heat, such as water heaters, kettles, microwaves, air fryers, dishwashers, etc. Managing their usage and not using them all at once helps in decreasing your electric bill total.
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