The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) will hold public hearings across all of South Africa’s nine provinces between May 7 and May 25 to consider three revenue claw-back applications, collectively valued at R66.6-billion, submitted by cash-strapped power utility Eskom.

The regulatory clearing account (RCA) applications cover years two (2014/15), three (2015/16) and four (2016/17) of the third multi-year price determination (MYPD3), which guided power tariff increases for the five-year period from April 1, 2013 to March 31, 2018.

RCA applications allow Eskom to recoup prudently incurred costs not catered for in the tariff and are meant to be considered and liquidated yearly.

However, no RCA applications have been considered following a North Gauteng High Court ruling in August 2016, which found Nersa’s approval of Eskom’s 2013/14 RCA application to be unlawful.

In that application, Eskom applied to recoup lost revenue of R22.8-billion for the financial year and was granted a partial claw-back of R11.2-billion by the regulator, which translated into a tariff hike of 9.4% from April 1, 2016.

However, the RCA mechanism was brought back into play after the Constitutional Court refused, in August last year, an application by several Eastern Cape businesses for leave to appeal a June 6 Supreme Court of Appeal ruling, which upheld Nersa’s appeal against the North Gauteng High Court judgment.

Nevertheless, Nersa refrained from considering the RCA applications immediately to enable it to deliberate on Eskom’s single-year revenue application for 2018/19. Eskom applied for allowable revenue of R219.5-billion, which would have translated to a hike of 19.9% from April 1.

However, on December the regulator approved allowable revenue of R190.35-billion, resulting in an average percentage price increase of 5.23% from April 1.

Nersa, which received thousands of written objections to Eskom’s 2018/19 revenue application and entertained hundreds of oral submission, has not yet released its record of decision, which some observers believe could still face an Eskom legal challenge.

The regulator published all three RCA applications on its website on Tuesday January 23 and set a closing date of March 23 for stakeholder comments.

Public hearings will kick off in the Western Cape on May 7 and conclude in Gauteng on May 25.

Nersa expects to make a determination on the applications on August 29.