Interesting piece about how to manage generation when your main source of power is PV. Also looks at how it’s being rolled out (IE fast), and how plants will be over built.
But I’m sure I’ve read before on this forum about situations where the retailer or the grid operator is paying the generator to not generate, and how that can become negative charging for end users.
I think this will happen with Large Scale PV installations but I see the opposite with Residential SSEG. It is in the interests of the local Municipality to encourage PV as our penetration (generally) is still very low and so local generated electricity can then be used locally and therefore at little or no Transmission Grid cost.
The more local PV generation is encouraged and the more it’s used locally the less Transmission network upgrades are needed AND the lower Municipal costs will be. I assume Eskom will want this from their direct Residential SSEG customers as well.
My 2c 
One part of this puzzle is controlling demand and supply on properties.
What I construe is
Which is doable in COCT, not in COJ where they might have the idea but they don’t have the money.
Agree… But this is only an issue when there is “oversupply” - either at the local (transformer level) causing equipment overload
I don’t see an issue if Muni’s have oversupply that they can “help” Eskom with.
This is not an issue for SA at the moment - no PV saturation in our near future. In European countries this is different with the huge PV uptake and Wind farms. (ie negative tariffs)
I note that in Germany it’s a spot market. Does that make it difficult for the consumer to take advantage of negative pricing as you don’t know when it’s going to occur and for how long?
The article I posted a link to refers to tools that can be used to anticipate demand and what different renewable plants must deliver when. I suppose they can use the same tools to predict a duck curve produced by roof top PV.
As those tools improve, they could come into play in homes, with rules that, say, heat water only when the price is low (or anticipated to be).
Though now I type that it starts looking complicated. Obviously if you’re home with a smart meter or app that tells you what the price is then you might decide to do something NOW. But presumably you will have to do that thing eventually, you just get a shot at doing it a bit early if the prices drop.
I would guess that the reality is that the companies that supply to homes build all this into their tariffs and give you a simplified set of tariffs - so much kWh at this time of day. And then they take the knocks and the gains on the spot market and hope that they more or less equal out over time.
Can they though? The grid is not designed to be two way, or does that not matter? If I start pushing my surplus back onto the grid, can the substation that supplies me start stepping up and pushing it back to whatever feeds it? Or does it just get consumed in my immediate neighbourhood?