Sparks Electrical News January 2020

CONTRACTORS’ CORNER

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Citiq prepaid lights up Port Elizabeth development – and marks a major milestone CITIQ PREPAID has laid down a major marker in the Eastern Cape with its sin- gle biggest roll-out of prepaid electricity meters to date. The country’s leading sup- plier of prepaid water and electricity sub- meters, Citiq Prepaid was commissioned to provide the electrical backbone for the redevelopment of Pier 14 in Port Elizabeth. Located off Govan Mbeki Avenue in the city’s busy downtown North End district, Pier 14 consists of an old office tower spanning four levels, with multiple retail spaces, including food, fashion and furniture, further below at street level. Owners GRITprop Investment (Pty) Ltd are currently repurposing the offices into affordable single-room residential apartments, a much-needed housing boost for Port Elizabeth’s inner city. In total, 111 units are under renovation, with first occupation penciled in for early 2020. awarded the tender for the installation contract and has been on site with builders for two months already, chasing hard on January's deadline. Growth opportunities for electricians and smaller electrical businesses are definitely there when it comes to Citiq Prepaid, says the company’s regional sales manager for Eastern and Southern Cape, Elwin Wait. “We supply to wholesalers and wholesalers supply to contractors, we don’t do the installation ourselves, and because the system is so easy to install, it means any qualified electrician can get on board with us by joining our loyalty programme (CIC).” Hardware aside, Citiq Prepaid’s smart proprietary vending system also makes it easy for end-users to control their electricity usage, while offering landlords and body corporates a neat and tidy alternative to managing multiple utility accounts. because it takes away the strain of getting money from so many different tenants,” says ARK electrician and construction manager, Tyrone Human. “They simply pay upfront for their electricity.” Tenants using Citiq Prepaid’s meters have the choice of buying their electricity tokens from any number of supermarkets, kiosks and petrol stations countrywide. Vendors receive payment and supply customers with a token number, which is then tapped into the keypad. A certain number of electricity credits, depending on the purchase amount, is immediately activated. Before the credits run out, users can simply buy more and top up, ensuring continuous supply into their homes or offices. This means usage can be monitored in real- time, unlike municipal post-paid accounts, says Gideon van Rensburg, an electrical technologist at consulting engineers CA du Toit, the appointed electrical contractors for the Pier 14 project.

Eachflatlet will have its ownCitiqPrepaid meter keypad with a small distribution box, allowing users to monitor their usage at all times. Apartments will receive their power courtesy of a single cable carrying live and neutral wires, as well as two communication strands, connected to one of four customised panels on each floor. Built by Eastern Switchgear in Sidwell, the panels house all the circuit breakers and primary meters. East London’s ARK Electrical was

For property owners, paperwork is eliminated – no longer do they need to fret about mailing bills, hounding late-payers or bad debts piling up. It is these business advantages which position Citiq Prepaid as the perfect choice for residential sublets, apartment blocks like Pier 14, light industrial parks, staff accommodation and offices. “Being a project on a large scale like this, metering is going to help the client

Despite being relatively sizeable in scope, Pier 14 presented few problems for CA du Toit. “On the electrical side, it was straightforward,” says Van Rensburg. “The design was basically just from an existing supply to that building and then installing new distribution boards, and from there we supplied each little flat with a distribution board. He continues: “That’s where the

solution and notching up a milestone along the way.

metering came in and we decided it was going to be much easier to have a split- metering system.” Enter Citiq Prepaid – answering the call, delivering a smart

Enquiries: 087 55 111 11

SPARKS ELECTRICAL NEWS

JANUARY 2020