The scary Eskom messages/license/register home systems

I think most people know that your Domicilium Executandi is the address where legal notices should be served :slight_smile:

Slightly less, but probably not zero, know that Domicilium essentially means ā€œhouseā€. Also from ā€œdomusā€ meaning ā€œhomeā€, and the same place we get things like ā€œdormitoryā€ and ā€œdomesticā€.

You can talk about your house as your domicile, in Afrikaans domisilie, but itā€™s a bit ancient, or as my kids would say, a little bit boomer :slight_smile:

Legal debaters said same.

So I asked, does ā€œmostā€ include most people in SA?

What about people, the majority, living in say areas like say i.e. Guguletu?
And squatter camps?
Your maid/gardener?
Guy filling your tank, washing your windscreen ā€¦ ?
Ones 18yo child.
Ones wife, cousins ā€¦

Quickly one sees ā€œmostā€ is a generalization. :slight_smile:

Ps. I did the ā€œexperimentā€.

As I said, I did it for fun ā€¦ but the point stands, legalize is not for the poor, the uneducated, the untrained.

It is a specialized field that says: Ignorance of the law is not a defense.

I have a problem with that if the law is not for the common reader to grasp.

I would think anyone who signed a contract, saw that text there, then asked ā€œwhat on earth is this?ā€ and got the reply ā€œjust write your address there!ā€ā€¦ knows what it is.

Thenā€¦ I found out last year Iā€™m neurodiverse. I donā€™t see the world the way ā€œmostā€ people do. Soā€¦ what the heck do I know :slight_smile:

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Well, there may be levels of ignorance here. By law, estate agents, insurance salespersons, people at shops helping you open a lay-by agreement, are required to explain every page of what you are about to sign.

My financial adviser always starts at page one and I tell him weā€™ve done all this before, and if I didnā€™t trust him Iā€™d have taken my business elsewhere. He says ā€œthanks, but I HAVE to explain this stuff to you each and every time. You have to go into this with your eyes open.ā€

Similarly when I bought the house I currently live in, the agent started walking me through all the documents and I said to him ā€œthis is the third time Iā€™m doing this now. I know youā€™re being diligent, but I know the broad strokes so can we just save everybodyā€™s time?ā€

Again: ā€œIā€™m not doing my job properly, Iā€™m not being fair to you or to the seller if I donā€™t explain to you all of what is youā€™re about to sign.ā€

When you open a lay by agreement, the store is supposed to first show you a schedule of how much you must pay for how many months. Before you sign.

But how many people are there who donā€™t know these things, dealing with people who donā€™t care that you donā€™t know and are keen to get the deal signed AQAP?

We rely hugely on trust that others know what they should do and then do it.

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Iā€™ll try to deal with the what and the how much. Please understand that I live in Johannesburg, so Iā€™m a City Power customer and my system is registered with them.

I have posted at length about my experiences elsewhere on this forum but

  • You are not going to be able to do it yourself unless you are a suitably qualified engineer, thus able to sign off on the schematic that is required.
  • You will need a COC that includes the PV system
  • You will also need a drawing showing how your system is connected to the grid and to the DB
  • If you just have inverter and batteries you arenā€™t generating, and there is nothing to register.
  • If (like me) you COULD generate power to feed back into the grid, but donā€™t plan to, you have to register. They donā€™t care that you donā€™t plan to, they care that your system has that capability.
  • The technical side is to ensure compliance with regulations. These are mostly about safety (EG I had to put extra labels on the DB and the meter box so that any electrician knows that there are two sources of power).
  • There is a list of approved inverters. COCT famously publish this list, but it is the same everywhere, based on the same regulations. Your inverter has to be on that list.
  • It must be properly installed so that (for EG) it doesnā€™t feed back when the grid goes down, and it is possible to completely bypass the system so that your entire DB is fed from the grid. There are other requirements, thatā€™s not an exhaustive list.

Back to my first point. Unless you are suitably qualified or have a mate who is, at some point you are going to have involve an engineer, and they are going to want paying.

I didnā€™t have to pay the City anything for registration, and it is my understanding that you donā€™t pay Eskom for registration.

You must register with whoever you buy your electricity from, not necessarily with Eskom.

In my case I took up an offer that my installer had negotiated for all of his clients. For 5 grand, a company named Pure Energy Solutions would do everything for you. I signed a document appointing Pure Energy as my proxy for the purposes of SSEG registration. They made an initial inspection then I signed that document and they took over. When my signature was required, they emailed the document to me, and I signed and sent it back. They took care of the whole process, so I didnā€™t have to stand in any queues.

In the case of COJ, they will send an engineer out to check your system. The installer or a representative he appoints must be present. They will not check everything that is declared, but they will pick a couple of things and say ā€œplease show me thisā€. They did check that my system didnā€™t feed back when the grid went down, and they did another test to see how long it took to reconnect when the grid was restored. AIUI this must be at least one minute and no more than 10. This is to avoid an overload when all these systems connect immediately and start demanding power.

Pure Energy inspected my system. They didnā€™t change it in anyway. When they found shortcomings they told me about me about them. The only one they did find was the aforementioned lack of labelling.

So if your system has been installed by somebody who cut corners or didnā€™t really know what he was doing, it might cost you quite a bit more.

I didnā€™t have to change tariff. There is vague wording about this on the letter that I got from COJ, but a reasonable reading of it is that they will switch me over to the appropriate tariff. Nothing has changed. I had to declare at application time if I wished to resell. I donā€™t, but if I did I would have had to switch tariffs. Different utilities may handle this differently.

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Good afternoon.

I require advice on whether i need to register my solar system. My electricity supplier is Ethewini municipality and my system has a CoC. I installed a 5kw solar system as a stand alone system to power some critical loads at home such as the fridge and some lights. This system is not connected to the grid, has its own db board which is seperate from the home db board, and they are not linked. I have installed separate wiring and plugpoints for these critical appliances so that i can manually decide whether to run them on the eskom power socket or my solar power socket.

Is my understanding correct that I only need to register my solar system if I am connecting it to the Eskom grid. In my case, I am not as a stand alone solar system powers a portion of my house while the rest of the house is powered using eskom power.

Sincere apologies for my long question

Thank you

As per a document circulated today, if you are registering with COJ

  1. You will be converted to a post-paid tariff. If youā€™re on the default tariff, then this wonā€™t make much difference. If you are on pre-paid then itā€™s going to set you back an extra R800 or so a month.
  2. ā€œFor systems exceeding 350kVAā€ a grid impact study is required - at your cost. The cost is on a scale according to system size. The lowest step on the scale is 0 to 1MVA, and that is going to set you back 30 grand + VAT.
  3. Compliance is mandatory. They donā€™t say what will be done in cases of non-compliance.

Uhā€¦ what is ā€œexceeding 350kVAā€. Is that per day? Instantaneous?

Probably peak power capacity. So instantaneous.

OKā€¦ So my Goodwe is not going to manage that

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This seems like the news I wanted to hear:-) how long ago did you register? Care to share the process?

I registered with City Power in March 2024. I used a company Pure Energy Consulting, they took care of all the paperwork, prepared the drawings, did the sign off etc.

More details at