Integrated Electricity Vending
Most municipalities handle municipal account payments and electricity vending separately, leading to high non-payment rates across the board.
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Because standard vending systems do not keep track of residents' municipal account balances, electricity purchases (and the rules around those purchases) are exactly the same for all residents - regardless of whether they are in arrears or not. Thus, residents who owe their municipalities large amounts for services rendered are not incentivised to pay these accounts, because all their other municipal purchases remain unaffected.
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Rakhadani Solutions offers municipalities a system that integrates municipal account balances into a smart vending process. This system allows residents whose accounts are up to date to purchase electricity instantly, whilst first requiring residents with overdue accounts to settle these (or a pre-set percentage of the outstanding amount) before they are allowed to buy an electricity token. These rules can be customised to each municipality's unique specifications.
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The end results of implementing this system are maximised revenue collection and sustainable service delivery.
Online Account Payments & Arrears Settlement
A lack of convenient and effective payment channels is a large contributing factor to widespread non-payment across South African municipalities.
The majority of municipal residents want to pay their accounts and understand that this is the driving force behind municipal service delivery. Without payment, maintenance and continued growth simply cannot take place. But in most municipalities, easy bill payments are not accessible or transparent enough. Residents either have to go to a handful of physical payment points, or they have to settle for seeing a single, uncontextualised amount on an online interface which rarely gives them real-time figures.
Rakhadani Solutions meets the above challenges by offering municipalities an interface that allows their residents to easily view and/or pay their various municipal accounts online. Municipalities can name specify and fully customise their respective accounts, and residents will also be able to see live account balances thanks to our fully integrated vending system.
The more accessible you make municipal payments, the higher your payment rates will be. A new, smarter future awaits!
Renewable Energy Solutions & Management
Energy costs are continually on the rise, and municipalities have a responsibility towards their residents and the businesses in their areas to make smart energy decisions in order to make living and operating conditions as favourable as possible.
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It is well understood that Eskom is sitting with an ageing fleet of coal generation plants, with national demand set to surpass these plants’ generation capacity from 2030 onwards.
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Not only that, but there is also an international and local drive to reduce carbon footprints on both a government and private level, raising the priority of implementing green energy solutions.
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Rakhadani Solutions is partnered with premium renewable service providers to bring you the best solutions currently available in the South African energy sector. These solutions can affect energy savings of up to 40% without the need for you to expend any capital, freeing up funds for developments in other high-priority areas.
Solar Generation
Due to South Africa’s warm climate and abundance of sunshine, no renewable energy source provides a better return on investment (ROI) than solar generation.
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Implementing solar generation is the first step in reducing your dependency on Eskom and plays a massive role in ensuring any municipality’s long-term energy security.
Battery Storage Capacity
The more battery storage capacity you have, the better you are able to take advantage of cheaper electricity available during night-time hours and from your solar generation. Thus, you can charge your battery with lower-cost electricity during off-peak times and then use that stored energy during peak hours to save on energy expenses and maximise profits for the municipality.
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Along with solar generation, battery storage also gives you a solution for loadshedding, with your batteries discharging and providing consumers with electricity when Eskom is not able to.
Wheeled Renewable Energy
The concept of energy wheeling has been around for a while but is now starting to gain widespread momentum, with independent power producers (IPPs) starting to make significant amount of energy available to large offtakers across the nation.
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Wheeling utilises Eskom’s distribution network and enables municipalities to procure renewable energy (via an accredited wheeling partner) at a discounted rate from providers in various parts of the country. Thus, savings of up to 40% can be affected and renewable objectives can be reached, without the need to invest in any additional infrastructure whatsoever.
Energy Source Optimisation
To maximise profitability, energy must always be sourced at the lowest possible rate. When you get to a point where battery storage capacity, solar generation and wheeled energy are available, in addition to the various tariffs at which the municipality can purchase electricity from Eskom, this will require a high level of integration and expert arbitrage functionality. This is exactly what Rakhadani Solutions offers our clients.
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Our energy source management system always chooses the cheapest energy source for your municipality – in real time – while still taking your loadshedding schedule into account to ensure maximum preparedness for those outages. We also provide you with monthly reports, showing exactly what portion of electricity consumed and sold in the municipality can be attributed to each respective source.
Proper management on this front will lead to major financial benefit for the municipality and the ability to further expand renewable energy initiatives.
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Let us help you transition to a fruitful, sustainable future.
Independent Revenue Distribution & Settlement
When it comes to private participation in the public sector, municipal non-payment is a major concern for many suppliers and investors (and unfortunately, there are many public examples of mismanagement that affirm these reservations). This has also become a problem for government entities like Eskom and National Treasury who are each owed billions of Rands by South African municipalities respectively.
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But, because participation by both public and private stakeholders is absolutely essential for municipal and national growth, Rakhadani Solutions set out to solve this challenge.
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To ensure 100% transparency and address external stakeholders’ concerns, Rakhadani Solutions can act as an independent third party that facilitates revenue collection and makes sure that funds are paid to the correct suppliers and stakeholders – whether public or private – before the municipality is settled.
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Because Rakhadani Solutions is integrated into resident payment channels (online and physical point-of-sale), all the funds will be channelled through us, and we will be able to guarantee entities like Eskom that they will be paid by us before any funds are transferred to the municipality.
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Thus, a large administrative burden will be lifted from municipalities, and external stakeholders will be much more inclined to participate in the implementation and execution of municipal projects and initiatives, because a reputable third party will be handling the flow and distribution of revenue.
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Rakhadani Solutions has reimagined what South African municipalities’ revenue flow can look like. Contact us to discuss how we help you unlock unprecedented growth.