The scary Eskom messages/license/register home systems

Hi guys

Ok,

Whats involved, where do we do this. whats the costs involved?

G

Are you connected to eskom directly? If you are they are trying to force you to register your solar with them. You will then be moved to the Home Flex package and receive a bidirectional meter for free. They are driving this hard and still offer the quotation fees and meter fees for free. I personally see this landing up in the constitutional court soon. Once you accept the Home flex package your Peak time rate will move from R3.20 to R6.8. Peak hours also gets extended by two hours per day at night time. No buying or selling, only kwh out vs kwh in, but the shortfall you will have to buy back at an elevated rate.

Your neighbour next door without solar, remains on the cheaper rate.

You can apply and register your system at your local Eskom office.

Feed back limitation is the same as with a COCt application. 25% of your connection capacity if you are on a shared transformer and 75% of your connection if you are on your own transformer.

What you generate in peak hours you can use in peak hours and the same for Standard and of peak generation and usage. Some management is needed to feed back as much as you can during daytime peak hours, to be able to not buy the R6.80 kwh’s during the night time.

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What I have mentioned here does only apply for residential, Agricultural and commercial applications work differently.

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last note: In a meeting with them a while back, they made it clear, if they find unregistered systems after the grace period, they will simply disconnect the supply until the registration is in place.

We warned them, this might go to court, told them they cant charge a guy with solar a higher rate than the guy without solar, they were not worried at all and said they will handle it as it comes.

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Eskom “forced registration”, CoCT made us do that in 2019 also with a grace period.
It was inevitable that Eskom follows same.
It works.

The higher rate, that is a whole new kettle of stinking fish.
Eskom has DEEP pockets for court cases, read, our taxes are paying for them to fight you, you the opposing party, pays to fight them out of your own pocket, double whammy methinks.

I hope a political party/ies steps up.

something to get AgriForum onto…

They like to fight for the South African rights.

G

This Eskom drive suddenly … Ps. watch, more Munics will follow suite …

On another forum, a few years back, I wrote that CoCT was but the first, “The Pilot Site” if you want.

The rest of the Munics, once they get the right control in place, as well as Eskom, will follow suite.

It is a National Regulation.

Effect … Attempts to chase “the preacher out of his home town” was in full effect.

Some very strong posters on said forum argued vehemently, yes, vehemently, that it is a Cape Town regulation!!! Cape Town Inverter List!
Stop scaring people.
“Gogga maak vir baba bang.”
Install any inverter you want!
Feed the power back to the grid!!!

Interesting to see how they have now subtly changed their tune.

Today, I just sit and smile on that forum now. The full Eskom thing has not hit there yet.
Not my horse, not my race.
For a picture of an ostrich and sand came to mind last year.

Learned a long time back, people hear, but do not listen.
That there are a large number of forum readers who read, absorb, go and ask the right questions off-forum and take the right action, for them.

For the rest:
Not. My. Money. Not. My. Problem.
I tried.

There, I said it. :slight_smile:

That Masters Dictatorial Degree in “Don’t Do What I Did …”
That stems from the Masters Doctatorial Degree in "WTF Not To Do … "

CoCT gave us the option of staying on our existing tariff. They did not forcefully move us to the SSEG tariff. CoCT also charges R4.75/kWh at the top end, pretty consistently across all tariffs (except LifeLine, where it is more lenient).

The main issue with the Eskom registration isn’t the registration requirement. It is the TOU tariff with the extreme after-hours cost that people object to.

Edit: OK, CoCT will force you to move from domestic- to home tariff, but almost nobody installs solar on a property worth less than 1 million, and even if you do, the connection fee is not onerous and is compensated in a lower first-bracket cost.

I know.
CoCT “applied their minds”.
Be as fair as they can be.

“Feels like” Eskom is “playing a tune” for the long term.

I get the impression that they are setting this high, to generate more income over time for when more an more solar comes online as rates increase every year.

Is it sustainable?
No.

Are there better options?
Yes. Split Eskom, get rid of the cost, carefully, of keeping old stations alive. Replace them with other sources of generation. Needs a lot of cash and new minds to do that.

But that Eskom is “not thinking this through for the man in the street”, fact.

In a way I agree. What they are trying to do is create a “cost reflective” tariff. When renewables are in the mix, your evening costs are much higher than your day time cost. In passing this directly to the customer, Eskom is probably just skipping, or trying to skip all the gradual transition stuff in the middle and just get straight to it. You want to play with the big generation boys… you got to accept the costs that come with it! That seems to be the attitude.

The better way would be to cushion that price jolt a little. I mean, better for the consumer.

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@JacoDeJongh can you also explain in short how it works for rural direct Eskom customers? 3 phase, on the Land Rate tariff, own transformer, 40A per phase. Unfortunately 40A per phase is the lowest tariff they have as far as I know, I don’t actually need 40A per phase.

… But is power costs not a regulated cost…
They need to go to Gov and get “can’t remember council” name to get approval before they increase rates…

it’s is if they want to use the current PV situation and bypass that.

G

with these inflated evening rates all i think will happen is people will boost their battery banks. people will use more gas stove/ovens.
they will make sure to install solar geysers, and disconnect geyser from db.
Def what I will do.

We came up with solutions because they can’t do their job. I’m not about to now get punished for it… I understand the fact of having the system registered to protect the sparky working outside on the lines.

G

Yes. It is national. Municipalities do publish their own by-laws regarding SSEG, but I think that’s mostly to fit sites into their tariff structures. Technically, AFAICS, it’s all much the same.

You are right that this has been coming. That is why I got my system registered when I had a chance to do so at a reasonable price. Already we were getting reports of City Power technicians disconnecting properties with solar - too many for them all to be bogus. I could see that at some point the City were going to flex their muscles. Though it seems to have not happened yet.

The guy who did my registration says that the regulations are already in place in most municipalities who do their own supply and billing.

Apart from Eskom and COCT these rules seem to be not be very visible to the public, but there are many regulations that folks seem unaware of. Is ignorance a defence in law?

Though now I think about it, when my system was installed I just assumed that they knew what they were doing (they did, it turns out) and the thought that I had a generating system connected to the City’s grid never entered my mind. Neither did asking them about safety (even my own). I should have done a bit better.

Sure. I use very little electricity, but the killer for me is that if I’m forced to change tariff in Johannesburg then first I am liable for the cost of the meter required, secondly there will be fixed charges of about a grand a month, so I am going to be a grand in the red before I have used any power and even if I don’t.

Boosting my battery power is going to cost me 40 grand plus probably a few more panels. So it’s a toss up as to which will cost me more over several years.

At the moment I am registered but still on the pre-paid tariff. So that works well for me. Any change to a post-paid tariff with it’s higher admin fees will mean I have to give up Netflix or something.

I pose these questions to legal minds: (for fun)
Domicilium citandi et executandion in all legal docs, how many people signing documents in SA knows what that means in legal terms?
Can they even pronounce it?
How many people in SA can read legal publications?
Have access to legal books?
How many people are even aware of all the laws on the law books?
Can they even understand them?

Man, the debate that follows, epic, when the legal minds explain how the law is working … for the ignorant. :slight_smile:

I then throw them this finale …
So, if you want to understand the law, you need to pay a knowledgeable legal mind their hourly rate to explain the law, or go to varsity to be able to grasp the full extent, and learn Latin, right? Whist keeping in mind the laws differ between the different disciplines?
So we, the populace, are totally ignorant, not so?
And we can be wiped out, financially, getting representation?

The debate endings vary … but I have struck a nerve a few times … for fun.

So to answer your question: Ignorance of the law is no defense …

executandi.

Small correction.

Indeed, AI, where I got it from, is still “learning” to spell. :rofl:

And it proves even I don’t know Latin …