Very simple … when you feed back at max all day every day, you need to cater for replacement costs earlier, like with everything working hard.
Solis is quite affordable and can get up to 20-year warranty extensions on some of the models, so I mitigate that replacement costs this way.
And being grid-tied, if the power still must go off, I cannot feed back in any event.
I see it as 100% pure income generation.
The current Victron setup stays in place for evening use primarily, the panels on it will charge the batts first, then power the house, the Solis primarily earning the income.
Lets be honest. Having a CEO with a background in the energy industry would have been better. Contrast it with people in his position, at other utilities in the world.
But then on the other hand, the CEO doesn’t have to fix the machinery himself. The CEO is a “people” person", not a “machine” person.
Also note the sleight of hand here, by a media house again. The headline has the word “is”, the text below says “might”. Which is it people? There is a reason English has words that imply a certain level of uncertainty. I understand that a headline needs to be short and catchy, but come-on… you know that’s all people read nowadays, right!?
In this case, it doesn’t matter. No CEO in that place runs that business, the politicians do. This I can tell you from been on the top floor when a minister was shouting at the top of his voice to get a CIO fired there. I was in the building but not on the exec level floor when a previous CEO was also fired.
The CEO at best is a manager. Het is totally and utterly dependent on firstly, the Board, and secondly his top management for everything. If they choose to lie to him, he is left out to dry. You can speculate on such for De Ruyter.
Then there is the unions, and union management that is a defect part of whispering in the ministers ear, as part of the Socialist and SACP structures in SA.
I can also add, in this case, that by the very same token, Mantashe is hardly qualified to know who and who is not qualified to run Eskom. I mean he is not unqualified, he has a B.Com, and an MBA, and some kind of Masters degree (can’t find out in what), but in all respects he is in the same boat as De Ruyter: Not really the guy to have a say about this, if we use the same yardstick he’s applying.
I won’t hold my breath for other metros to follow soon, CoCT has been thinking out the box for a long time already where others are still well and truely stuck in the box.
Looks promising.
Has several social positive effects too.
I may be suffering from Monday Morning snarl, but this does also smack of political opportunism by the DA. Nonetheless, best measured by the outcome. Though I always thought CoCT could be powered by the crystal that lives under the Table…hehehe
If you don’t have to pay some or other fixed fee to feed back plus pay for a special meter, then I don’t think the rate really matters all that much. Obviously getting peanuts back won’t be nice, but I’d say anything above 50% of the going rate per kWh can work. This obviously also depends on that fixed connection fee.
They’ve been saying this for years – hardly opportunistic if you’ve been saying it all along and running your election campaign on this premise. What is opportunistic is the “So sue me” stance of doing this now instead of waiting for permission.
The cost of the bidirectional meter, any additional connection fees?
What are the limits, for a house, on like a 60a breaker, still max 3.5kw connected grid-tied with feedback? Or the full amps of the breaker going forward?
And what is the ANC/Gov/NERSA’s reactions going to be?
First I became aware of this all was back in 2008. By then they had already spoke of registering solar systems.
No political party has that long a memory.
This is more like a long-term carefully crafted plan by engineering types and other clever dedicated people, that at last(!) is being implemented by a new mayor who has less to no baggage compared to old grey-haired mayors who have other “needs” to focus on.