Yeah, it is this concept of using the grid as a “battery” – I feed back during the day and consume from the grid at night.
I don’t think most countries pay back 1 to 1, but overall my monthly bill becomes much less.
This would be for countries where people get solar because it is green / renewable energy, or I want to save costs. I’m not sure if that is still the main reasoning everywhere – if you read the background for the Lithium Ion Battery Test Centre in Australia, for example, they explain that their methodology of cycling Li-Ion batteries 3 times a day is to simulate typical once-a-day cycling of your Li-Ion batteries for three years and thus to test reliability and performance. That implies to me that at least some people in Australia might also be getting batteries and not using it for backup but actually using them every day.
TTT will be able to give you plenty info on COCT’s policy and tariffs re feedback.
Not worth it at all. The meter that will allow and monitor this alone sets you back North of R10K I believe. And there is a daily charge for this privilege.
Financially it only makes sense for large electricity consumers with R100k plus monthly bills I believe.
There’s very little incentive in City of T especially to feed back. 10c/kWh? No thanks.
I expect at some point they will get tough on the regulation and force us to register our systems, but up to then I doubt a lot of people will.
At the same time, California had blackout problems exactly due to it being desert/semi desert areas, a lot of incentives to go solar and then people stopping generation at sunset but still running aircons for a while longer. So the city might just be saving themselves more problems down the line (waaaay down the line).
Titbit to ponder on: Victron guarantees their product for 5 years, and they made provision for grid tying, and they are well aware of feeding back, see the software options on the Venus, so the logical assumption is that they have so much trust in their workmanship that they guarantee it will run for 5 years continuously.
That is why the Multiplus limits itself to 80% capacity when grid-tied. It cannot overheat, and it is not running at max capacity for hours on end.
I do recall hearing owners of our favourite Taiwanese inverter recommend this approach, running them at lower levels to aid longevity. With those inverters it is important, of course, since the weakest link is usually the electrolytic capacitors that get thoroughly cooked in a matter of months if you do that…
Jip, the CORE problem is not feeding back, the problem is:
Weather
Evenings and morning
Because you cannot start and stop 'n power station easily, so they still have to run and that costs money.
To do it right, you need to make smaller grids, more control on local level, to adjust fast and efficiently i.e. replace and upgrade the existing grid to a large extent, and then find solution on top of that, to not need large power stations.
Can be done … if you have the backing of a nation, and the leadership to drive it.
A much simpler solution is just that people learn to less comfortable in their habits. A large part of the problem, and why we have so much wastage (energy, but also food, water etc.) is because we want to have anything we want immediately when we want it. With my current set of solar panels and batteries, I can run my whole house every day.
Yes, some days I’ll have to not do washing, other days I might not have warm water or wouldn’t be able to turn on the heater/oven and every day I won’t be able to do it all at the same time. However, I can just manage around it.
Unfortunately, getting everybody in a household (not even to mention in a nation) to work together is the biggest problem. If it was just me, I’d literally flip my main breaker and just manage myself.
My 2c.
the last few days before lockdown I got a trailer and picked up some goodies, as we were to have “3 weeks” of down time I could just aswell install some solar.
It was lockdown I did not register with CoCT, also I am fully offgrid on the loads that’s connected on the inverter and the inverter itself with not even sharing the same earth.
Around 6 months later there was a letter from CoCT with an 8K fine about not registering and having solar, now I never got this letter, they only contacted me via email 2 weeks back and then only did I found out about it, was a registered letter so luckily I never signed for it so busy getting my solar inspected and signed off and trying to register to see if I can side step CoCT greedy claws.
So when they contacted me they wanted to change my meter from the Conlog to a enlight Sienna that has an disconnect in, it has a relay on the inside but its hard to imagine this(its so small) can do 80-100 amps, according to the Tech that installed it.
Anyway, so I get that CoCT wants to protect their grid by installing this new meter, but soon we will have an solar tax for anyone with this meter and or that has a panel on their roof if they use it or not…
To remove the older meters that costs a ton in humans having to go and read them each month.
As a 2nd way to stop any feedback.
The ONLY mention I have ever read about “sun/solar tax” was from the ANC a year or two ago.
CoCT added a R150 ex VAT charge to all for the network must still be maintained, same with the water min charge, the network must still be maintained because we use less water.
Therein the rub … solar panels must be registered for future planning for CoCT and to see who is grid-tied and who is off-grid to not waste time and resources by sending people out to check.
Also good reading is the national SANS and NRS regulations, the latest ones.
Yeah, this is one of my bugbears too. But the media gets mileage out of it, so they continue to use the inaccurate headline.
Whether there is a tax or not is somewhat of a fight about words. A tax is a compulsory contribution to state revenue (by definition). A solar tax would therefore be when people with solar are forced to pay the state money which people without solar don’t have to pay. On the face of it, it sounds open and shut: When people with solar power needs to pay a connection fee while those without it doesn’t, that does appear to be a tax levied on solar power.
But one could also argue that it is not a tax, but an adjustment in the tariff structure. The most recent Eskom debacle… (Farmers and RuralFlex etc)… they say it is a change in the tariff structure.
How to distinguish? Well, as I see it three things could happen:
The government/supplier forces you to register the amount of PV you have installed. They then send you a bill for a percentage of the estimated energy sales lost.
The government/supplier levies a connection fee for having PV connected, and they don’t lower the per-unit cost (usually for the first X units consumed).
The goverment/supplier levies a connection fee, but they lower the per-unit cost for part of your consumption.
Now as far as I can see, both CoCT and the recent Eskom debacle is in the third category. So in my mind it is not a tax. It is a tariff structure adjustment.
Agreed. And the same also applies overseas where the utility bill (especially some states in US) will be split in a couple of different fees:
Connection fee (a fixed monthly charge)
Supply fee per kWh (cost of generation for electricity consumed)
Delivery fee per kWh (to get the generated electricity to you)
If that is what they are going for then there’s absolutely no problem from my side even if they bundle the supply and delivery fee into one. From what I understand (like @plonkster says) it will end up being a monthly fee, but a lower cost per kWh. It’s actually a better reflection of the costs associated with getting electricity.
Yes, users with PV may get affected more than those without purely because of the connection fee that you now need to pay monthly instead of buying 350 kWh once off every 6th month, but I am more than happy to pay a reasonable connection fee each month in order to be able to have my shortfall supplemented by the grid.
I’m pretty sure that when I stayed in a flat in Stellenbosch years ago that my slippie from Shoprite used to show that from the R300 that I bought there was a per day connection fee that wiped R150 off and the rest was at Rx/kWh.
It obviously also depends on how your provider will implement it and if they will implement it. It sounds like Eskom will do it for Eskom direct customers in the near future, but it’s up to the municipalities how they do it as far as I understand it.
I can already hear people wanting a refund for the 16 hours out of the 720 hours of the month that they were without a grid connection due to loadshedding.
The ONLY time I will argue blue murder ito any fees, is if I am 100% off-grid in the city, with NO connection to Eskom … any other time, that connection fee they charge, I will pay for the convenience to be able to use Eskom because one cannot have a local/regional grid and not paying as a collective, to have it maintained and operational.
It is much cheaper than batteries, or a larger inverter.
Right. It also helps to look what happens elsewhere in the world. Same thing happened in Spain some years ago (if my memory serves and I am not butchering the details). First they subsidised solar PV, and then they did a complete about turn, not only removing the subsidies but actually charging people for the grid connection. This caused the same kind of outcry… but you could escape the connection fee completely simply by not having a connection at all. Which some people did.
I get really really irritated when people overstate a case (usually for political reasons). It makes it impossible to have a reasonable discussion about it.
Of course I have no doubt that a change in the fee structure CAN be used to dissuade your customers from moving away. If my interlocutor wants to make that argument, he should do so, instead of just baaahing with the rest of the sheep Teh GovaMent WiLl TaX YoUr SoLaR!..
