Also, an easy fix for those people who intended to install solar later, is to buy one of the cheaper listed Solis inverters and AC-couple it.
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1500 applications in August, 50% up from July. Can just imagine the strain on the system to work through those.
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How would CoCT stop people from installing an off grid inverter as battery back and just not register, a lot of fly by night installers, will still sell/install ( wire into the db ) off grid inverters, because they are cheap. I had a call regarding installing panels on a AcDc sold/installed Axpert battery back up system, where the client was told that they can add panels later on still.
As I understand it there should be a changeover switch between mains and inverter…
The problem comes when you need to charge your batteries.
But this nonsense of electrocuting the guys working on the grid with your little pisswilly inverter. Go on, next time the grid is off see how many volts your system will be able to crank the mains voltage up to 
Q: Would you work on the grid if your friend next door was sending 10000W @230v into your network… ?
40plus AC amps… 
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His 10kW won’t go far. He’ll be powering every house connected to that substation and also the HT transformer on the secondary winding…
NB: The loadshedding is switched at major substations, not at your local minisub…
It depends. You’re assuming the maintenance people don’t have to pull cables off the busbar going to your house, or that the fault isn’t an open breaker or severed cable that allows your 10kW to power up a portion of the street. We don’t make rules based on what normally happens. We make them based on worst case fault conditions.
I know it is Broadband reporting…but
My first thought was will this accelerate the installation of solar systems and solar geyser systems?
Also am confused who is to pay for the Smart meter.
The smart meter installation is estimated to cost R3,000, which Ramokgopa said will be recouped in savings from lower electricity consumption within five months.
Yeah, we have these forum/internet armchair experts (no experience in electricity distribution) spreading “facts” that become “urban legends” whilst engineers think of something totally different.
Will anyone work on a circuit that may, or may not, have electrical potential because “Mnr. Slim Elektriese ou” connected his electrical supply based on what he has deduced is logical?
It always comes down to “my XYZ inverter cannot charge the grid” … but Mr Slim does not know what his neighbors did so years later everyone on the same transformer has had the same “expert guidance” all down the wrong path. Then something goes wrong and oh boy, then they shout and scream that there must be regulations.
History has the tendency to repeat itself.
I prefer properly trained electrical experts to set down the regulations taking into consideration all potential loopholes based on 100 years of experience versus “O, we did not see that coming” / “we did not know that”.
“I, I, I, me, me, me want my cheap-ass not-even-SABS-tested inverter installed in my house and bugger the rest they don’t know anything because I know electricity” is not working for me so much.
EDIT: If you install solar panels you better do it right.
This can work. Chatted to some other off-forum people who had a similar idea.
Give houses like say 10a to run TV, internet, lights alarm.
Exceed it, disconnect the house for say ±10min.
Exceed it again and disconnect for the LS period.
You WILL stay <10a.
Like with #DayZero … some people could afford water so they still used silly amounts, naming and shaming them, even better, reducing their water to a dribble worked, and water consumption was brought to heal. Unity Creates Power came to mind.
Can save SA taxpayers a ton on new expenditures if we collectively manage our scarce electricity resources wisely.
… install more renewables, those that need more power in those times.
All this could have been prevented if Mister supplier and it’s overlords just dit the bare basics… Think about that.
BasieseGroetnis
Yeah… and I am not saying this is your position… but someone else acting badly doesn’t give me the right to do the same.
I mean that is the entire philosophical problem. It makes the good vs evil fight unfair, because good always has to restrain itself.
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Right you are, but missing the point. Nobody would be contemplating doing any of this, let me be explicit here, if the morons did not screw the system for own gain, there I said that. There would be no need for cheap inverters, or dodgy installs in the first place.
It is bad enough we have such shitty enforcement of everything, let alone shitty maintenance of everything we pay for, oh wait, there is no maintenance. What they term maintenance ain’t, it’s an excuse to pilfer the golden egg and goose….
DwarsGroetnis
I feel like something extra is happening here. From the MyBB article:
It will also refuse applications for standby and off-grid systems.
So you cannot even apply under the old guise of “I have a hard interlocking changeover that separates my RE setup from the grid” anymore. On top of that:
It will also not apply to scenarios where residents completely sever their homes from the grid.
In other words, the only way to use the off-grid excuse now, is to go completely off grid. No connection to the city at all.
Let’s not pretend this is not going to hurt at all. This is a massive blow to the “backup inverter used as hybrid sseg” option. It kills that option completely. If you want to connect an inverter/charger to your house and also connect PV to it… you need the paperwork, which means the inverter now costs double.
The anger is justifiable… as is the city’s position.
Yes, especially people who installed said cheap inverter with the plans of getting PV later… and now that means getting a new inverter (or a Solis as you’ve mentioned).
I understand the city’s position, they need to make laws that work for everybody. They cannot trust every individual to just magically do it safely.
Let’s also not ignore that bringing a unit back at Kusile happened without appropriate health regulations.
Why must the little guy jump through hoops when governance can ride a horse and cart over regulations?
Yes, apparently, people are dying due to air quality issues.
Look after yourself, and make it an en masse tollgate protest, in my opinion.
By the way (I have tested a few), I haven’t encountered an inverter (at least, that any of us would consider) that backfeeds after the supply is lost.
Generators, sure, it was always the case, but that never seemed an issue. Only when the populace seems to be getting their independence is it a problem?
Take a look at the national level, where apart from CoCT is this registration even a thing? That in illustration of my point… There is no enforcement, never mind a mindset of compliance. just look at them illegal connections, everywhere, including CoCT. Nothing done bout that!
No I am not saying do as you please, I did not. It is a comment on the social acceptance by people in power that it is ok to do illegal things…
ReelsenregulasieGroetnisGroetnis
Not even independence, but loss of the feeding trough really. Or a loss of power as that = loss of feeding trough!
FeedupatfeedingGroetnis
I can find common ground there. I absolutely agree that the people who caused the problem in the first place needs to shoulder their share of the blame.
There is an example in the book “Freakonomics” (which I have never read, but I know the example), about how levying a tax on each cup of coffee will cause the cups to grow larger. That is what the market does.
In this case, a kind of energy tax was added to the market, and the market sought the cheapest way to counter it… as it always does.
Cause and effect, which is completely foreseeable when you work with large numbers.
In this context also, we have CoCT trying to build something decent out of the ruins created by others, that is, the guy putting the obligation (to use good equipment) on you is not the guy who created the problem, but he is kinda-sorta someone of a similar colour (government). So it all becomes very messy.
This article also suggests that installers – probably a few bad apples – were specifically abusing the off-grid provision.
They would install an Axpert, and sign it off as off-grid. Which it kinda-sorta is, for those of us who know the layout of that inverter, but it was also a little fraudulent. The requirements was clear, and they chose to “cheat”.
The city now closed that loophole in a manner that is, even I will admit, quite heavy-handed. I really don’t know how else to do it though. There needs to be order. That order is best established through some kind of standards legislation, which we already have.
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