BY SIBUSISEKILE NDLANGAMANDLA
MANZINI– Reporting an electricity fault could now be as simple as reaching for a mobile phone, as the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) introduces new digital services aimed at making life easier for customers and improving the speed at which electricity problems are identified and addressed.
The company has expanded its USSD platform to allow customers to report electricity faults directly from their mobile phones, reducing the need to physically visit EEC offices or rely on other channels when experiencing supply problems.
Acting Managing Director Mphumuzi Maziya said the improvements formed part of EEC’s efforts to strengthen communication with customers and make its services more accessible.
For households and businesses, the development means electricity problems can be brought to the company’s attention more conveniently, particularly at a time when quick communication can make a significant difference in restoring supply.
Beyond giving customers a simpler way of reporting faults, EEC has also introduced technology that enables the company to track electricity faults across the country.
The system allows EEC to identify areas experiencing electricity problems without first having to dispatch teams to physically search for the source of every fault.
This technological shift is expected to improve operational efficiency by helping technical teams establish where problems are occurring and direct resources to affected areas more effectively.
Ultimately, the improvements have the potential to shorten response times and strengthen the reliability of electricity services for customers.
Maziya said the developments demonstrated the company’s growing use of technology to modernise service delivery and strengthen the relationship between EEC and its customers.
In another significant development, EEC is also opening greater opportunities for residential and commercial customers who have invested in solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.
Customers can register their solar PV installations with EEC and sell excess electricity generated by their systems back to the national grid.
The initiative means a household or business producing more solar electricity than it requires does not necessarily have to allow that excess energy to go unused. Instead, qualifying customers can feed the additional electricity into the national network and derive value from their investment in renewable energy.
The development could also encourage greater participation by ordinary consumers and businesses in Eswatini’s renewable energy sector.
As more households and companies invest in solar systems, allowing excess generation to contribute towards the national grid creates an opportunity for customers to become active participants in electricity generation rather than remaining consumers alone.
It also complements efforts to broaden the country’s energy mix and increase the contribution of renewable energy to electricity supply.
Maziya said the combination of digital customer-service solutions, improved fault-management technology and opportunities for solar customers illustrated EEC’s continued efforts to modernise its operations.
For customers, the changes translate into greater convenience: faults can be reported more easily, electricity problems can be identified more efficiently, and investments in solar energy can potentially provide additional value.
The developments mark another step towards a more accessible, technology-driven and increasingly renewable electricity sector in Eswatini, with customers positioned at the centre of the transformation.
