system32

I switched to prepaid because the guesstimate readings were a problem. I needed a predictable bill and not estimate readings every month. I need a system that is not open to abuse. I need a system that cuts me off when there is a problem of excessive usage (eg geyser gets leak and stuck on for a month). Prepaid is the correct solution for me. Prepaid is cheaper for lower consumers of electricity. The argument from CityPower is that prepaid was never meant for affluent suburbs. There are no bylaws that enforce "affluent only". I'm "middle income" - does that now count as "affluent". CityPower trying to increase revenue - CityPower's own analysis on 2024-03-19 shows: R20,7 billion revenue, cost of supply was R20,2 billion, surplus (profit) of R495m (2.5%) expect a 15% surplus (profit) on sales of electricity - R3.1b getting 2.5% surplus (profit) on sales of electricity R495m total energy losses (non-payment/theft) were ~27% in FY2122 - R5.6b NERSA benchmark for energy losses is 10%-12% Reducing losses from 27% to 15% would increase surplus (profit) from R495m to R3.5b Just do your job and reduce "energy losses" to NERSA benchmark and stop trying to punish paying customers. Only 4% of Alexandra, Mountain View, Tshepisong, River Park, Pennyville and Vlakfontein, etc pay for their electricity… Recent efforts increased this to 11% payment rate. https://www.citizen.co.za/news/south-africa/city-power-collects-7-more-revenue-from-customers-in-alex/ https://www.sowetan.co.za/news/south-africa/2024-06-12-a-number-of-city-power-customers-dont-pay-for-electricity/ CityPower must f**** off until they have reduced theft to NERSA recommended levels. See attached CoJ-2024-25-ELECTRICITY SERVICES-proposed-tariffs.pdf for details of revenue, revenue losses, etc. CoJ-2024-25-ELECTRICITY SERVICES-proposed-tariffs.pdf

In the news: Joburgers furious over ‘punitive’ solar billing move - ENCA https://www.enca.com/news-top-stories/joburgers-furious-over-punitive-solar-billing-move DA accuses City Power of targeting Joburg residents with solar power https://www.citizen.co.za/news/da-accuses-city-power-of-targeting-joburg-residents-with-solar-power/ City Power not ‘punishing’ Joburg residents with solar power https://www.citizen.co.za/news/city-power-not-punishing-joburg-residents-solar-power/

I have 2 geysers. Main is a Solar thermosiphon with electrical backup - installed in 2010. The cottage is a is a regular 100l Kwikot (installed 2021). I have timers on both that limit electricity from 10am - 15pm - I use the geysers as a "heat battery"

4 year update - Solar PV & battery were installed 21 Nov 2021. For 2025, the CoJ rate includes the fixed fee. This year, we added additional appliances (more TV, more PC, more heaters) so the load has climbed. In Oct I added another 5KWh AM2 (total 25kWh battery bank) to reduce my grid usage (was ~30% cheaper than initial purchase). Thinking of adding another 8 panel string to cater for winter's shorter days. In Nov 2025 we had a grid failure that lasted 15h overnight - no impact to me. Biggest issue seems to be rain weather ☹️ which prevents full charging - at least the grass is green. Nov 2025, changed my minimum SoC to 25%. 20% seemed to cause the AM2's to trigger a strange charge/discharge pattern from grid. Hubble AM2 - State of Health: battery/Pack_1/StateofHealth/state, payload=100 (new) battery/Pack_2/StateofHealth/state, payload=92 battery/Pack_3/StateofHealth/state, payload=93 battery/Pack_4/StateofHealth/state, payload=92 battery/Pack_5/StateofHealth/state, payload=92 Just need them to last another 2-3 years to recover my battery costs. Overall, I'm very happy and it's still one of the best investment I've made.

Had a similar issue, dip switch ID not correctly set - double check the ID.

3 year update - Solar PV & battery were installed 21 Nov 2021. In 2023, 79.7% of my kWh came from Solar / Self generated. 20.3% comes from grid - mostly cloudy days and winter (where we use electric heaters) Outages > 4h: We experienced a total of 417h18m/17d9h18m in 180 incidents of outages (load shedding) We were not impacted by outages. The grid meter readings from the CoJ Meter and the consumption is from a Hiking DDS238-2 WiFi meter. The decrease in self generation can be attributed to me changing the SoC threshold from 20% to 30% due to stage 5/6 load shedding earlier in the cycle. Thinking of setting the SoC threshold back to 20%. I've saved R65,611 over the three years (about 30% of the investment). CoJ have added a R230 fixed fee to prepaid (with larger fixed fee to come). Also Eskom want a 43.55% increase for municipalities for 2025. These increases seem to make it financially viable to add another 5kWh battery and 8xPV panels to go from 80% to 95% off-grid which I'm considering.

Eskom is making the finance case to add an additional battery add 8 more panels and go from 20% grid usage to 0% grid usage. Then I disconnect and go 100% offgrid. Problem solved.

It's very common for homes to sell excess to grid - read up on Australia and California and Europe. Not so common in South Africa for homes to grid feed due to: registering process is is tedious (red tape) - needs streamlining registration process is costly due to consultants - needs streamlining bi-directional meter can be expensive - need cheaper meters limited to "net-zero" - can only receive money for what you consume - allow to sell all generated PV electricity rates paid to consumers are low making cost recovery difficult - better rates (eg CT has better rates) Most of us just give up and only self-use. This is a real pity as lots of excess home PV electricity power goes to waste. Not sure why Metros don't encourage electricity from home users. 1kWh from the my PV system is the same as 1kWh from Eskom and mine is much cheaper. If the grid-feed was encouraged, then new installs would be built and sized for that. Instead they sized home PV for self consumption. Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa needs to push Nersa, Eskom, Metros to fix the process for the benefit of the country.

New CoJ R230 per month fixed fee on prepaid will put you into arrears.

I_pmax 9.62A V_pmax 41.6V I have 16 of these: 8 in series on MPPT1 8 in series on MPPT2 Am looking to put all 16 on MPPT1 configured as 8 series strings 2 parallel - North Facing Then add 8 new panels (still to buy) on MPPT2 - East Facing

Just to confirm: The Deye 8k has 2 MPPT controllers. You have connected the solar panels as follows: MPPT1: 8s+8s x 460W NE = 7360W MPPT2: 8s x 460W NW = 3680W The reason I'm asking is I'm considering adding an additional string to my Sunsynk 8k. Now: MPPT1: 8s x 400W N = 3200W MPPT2: 8s x 400W N = 3200W Proposed: MPPT1: 8s+8s x 400W N = 6400W MPPT2: 8s x 400W E = 3200W Sorry, not trying to go off-topic, but I think many are interested in adding more strings. Thanks in advance.

Suggest reporting the issue directly to info at solar-assistant.io I'm on 2024-08-27 beta 64 bit on RPI4 and that seems fine. I have Hubble AM2 batteries.

I use 30% SoC on 4 x Hubble AM2 (~20kWh). Lasts most nights. Only recharge from Solar.

Unplug the sunsynk dongle and use Solar Assistant or Home Assistant. Problem solved.

App & Website need a bit of "improvement". I go to the Purchase History -> Select the previous purchase on that meter -> Buy Again That jumps to Once-Off-Purchase with the meter number already filled in -> Flexi Recharge. Strange (annoying) that the Flexi Recharge is only on the Once-Off Purchase menu.

I buy via FNB website - just find it more convenient. The App does not allow me to select saved meter numbers for multiple meters.

Thanks, that makes some sense: R172.50 (inc VAT) to service fee R127.50 (inc VAT) to units Does not correspond with the bills R150/R150 split shown on the purchase detail above

Can you guys check my calculations - maths was never my strong point - here is the FNB purchase: Thanks in advance for the help with my maths.

On 21 July I bough R300 via FNB (my usual purchase) According to the FNB bill: R150 went to service fee. R150 went to 46.90 tokens (kWh) => R3.20/kWh incl VAT of 35.3%??? VAT was R39.13 VAT on R150 of tokens (kWh) should be R19.565 (15%) CoJ seem to have included all the VAT in the R150 for the tokens (kWh). R150-R39.13VAT = R110.87 / 49.90kWh => R2.364 which corresponds with the CoJ advertised rates. Is it legal to charge 35.3% VAT? My next purchase of R300 will be on 21 Aug...

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax This new R230 seems to fit quite well with Wikipedia definition. I have ~1500kWh in my meter and am trying to run it down to a lower kWh over the 12 months so I'm currently purchasing R300 per month.

As a Solar + Battery, this 20A connection reduced tariff would work for me. Sadly CoJ unlikely to offer this.

I understand the indigent tier and I don't qualify. From what I've read from @Bobster. it seems that you need to buy a minimum of R400, of which R230 is the new tax. eg. If I buy only R100 prepaid for 12 months (I'm away) what happens?

Trying to find out the rules for low kWh users of CoJ prepaid. I use ~160kWh per month and was purchasing ~R380 per month. If I purchase R400, will CoJ only give me R170 of kWh R230 of tax ??? What's the rule for low purchases? I read CoJ documents on joburg.org.za -> Key Documents -> Tariffs -> Approved Tariffs For 2024/25 https://joburg.org.za/documents_/Pages/Approved-Tariffs-For-202425.aspx and can't find details.

Bad cell is what I would have thought. Just had one of my batteries power off with a bad cell - sent the battery in for replacing of the bad cell.

"City Power will over the next few years gradually subject the prepaid customer to a more appropriate contribution to the cost of supplying the particular customer" Get the Vaseline ready for ever increasing service tax & capacity tax on prepaid electricity. NERSA only controls the c/kWh. The service tax & capacity tax are able to be escalated by CoJ by any amount. The service tax is to read your prepaid meter - what a scam. Additionally the c/kWh are higher than post-paid. We don't pay a "capacity" or "service" fee to PnP, Shell, SPAR, McDonald, MTN, VodaCom etc for providing a service - this is a complete scam. CoJ has been using the idea of indigent / low category to make it seem that they being reasonable - they know that 95% of indigent households are not registered: "95-97% of all indigent households in the Johannesburg metropolitan municipal area are not on the city’s Indigent Register and therefore the residential prepaid high tariff applies." See https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-06-13-johannesburgs-indigent-households-set-to-be-hammered-with-massive-electricity-price-increases/ This is a tax on law abiding low and middle class ratepayers that is estimated to bring in R63.3m per month from the 275,373 pre-paid customers. Vote them out or move.