system32

The rules for Cape Town are kinder to Solar PV - no net-zero and better rate. Just the meter is expensive - they are getting cheaper meters.

Thanks for the info on the VAT. CoJ normally publish Electricity Rates excl VAT (c/kWh excl VAT) From what I've read, there are few registered indigent consumers with CoJ CoJ claim from central government for the FBE based on census data and pocket 95-95% of the FBE money. Some 95-97% of all indigent households in the Johannesburg metropolitan municipal area are not on the city’s Indigent Register See https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-06-13-johannesburgs-indigent-households-set-to-be-hammered-with-massive-electricity-price-increases/ This will only reduce the 275,393 prepaid by a maximum of 5%.

Thanks for that - net zero is anti-solar. Since I only use about 300kWh per month from the grid. 85% of my consumption comes from the sun. Seems there is zero financial incentive to grid feed and help CoJ (they have load reduction issues).

What happens if I don't buy prepaid for 3 months? Will I have to pay 3x230 on my next purchase? I understand there are ~275,372 prepaid meters in CoJ, so this will generate: R63.3m per month extra taxes for no improvement in service. Also in the OP, CoJ don't mention the total increase Why is there an R70+VAT admin fee on prepaid? R2,360.57 - R1,916.76 = R443.81 increase per month R2,714.66 - R2,204.27 = R510.38 increase inc VAT per month or 23.2% increase - not the 12.72% they brag about. I use ~300kWh per month, which results in a 45% increase - this is unaffordable.

For CoJ Is it viable to sell excess Solar to CoJ to cover costs? Can I cover more than just costs and pay my whole bill or make a profit?

I'm on CoJ prepaid. My CoJ June statement has an additional row for Prepaid Electricity:

Like @Gavin van Dam said earlier - check for a hot water leak. You say your water usage has stayed the same - not sure how you checking - but in my case I had a hot water leak in the shower behind tiles - there was no visible indication of a water hot leak.

You haven't stated if you have a Solar PV system. If you have a Solar PV system or intend getting a Solar PV (use the R20,000 budget as part of a normal Solar PV system), then set your geyser timer to come on during the day when the sun is shining and you have excess electricity (10am-4pm).

Connect with: ssh solar-assistant@the-ip-address

You can set the password via Configuration -> System Configure -> Local password Then change Configuration -> System -> ssh-access to "key and password authentication" Once you able to connect, you can install .ssh/authorized_keys and just use keys.

With the 64bit version, there is an option to enable ssh access. I use the ssh access to run some python apps that collect additional metrics from Juntek, Hubble and SunSynk solar-assistant:~ $ crontab -l # m h dom mon dow command @reboot $HOME/myapp/sun2mqtt/sun2mqtt.sh > /tmp/sun2mqtt.log 2>&1 @reboot $HOME/myapp/jun2mqtt/jun2mqtt.sh > /tmp/jun2mqtt.log 2>&1 @reboot $HOME/myapp/hub2mqtt/hub2mqtt.sh > /tmp/hub2mqtt.log 2>&1 @reboot $HOME/bin/batch_topio.sh >> /tmp/batch_topio.log 2>&1 @daily $HOME/bin/batch_topio.sh >> /tmp/batch_topio.log 2>&1 Setup a python virtual env $ mkdir -p myapp $ cd myapp $ python3 -m venv myapp $ source myapp/bin/activate (myapp) $ which python3 /home/solar-assistant/myapp/myapp/bin/python3 (myapp) $ pip3 install minimalmodbus (myapp) $ pip3 install paho-mqtt (myapp) $ cd jun2mqtt (myapp) jun2mqtt $ python3 jun2mqtt.py

Also heard that the budget did not get the votes - hopefully because of opposition to this prepaid service fee scam.

The table users (275,373) was from someone on a WhatsApp group. The Charges are from your post + VAT. I don't agree with adding fixed fees to prepaid as these fees are part of the higher R/kWh. In terms of the fixed fees, I would prefer if they just bumped up the R/kWh - which was was the old system was. Prepaid R/kWh was higher than post-paid to cater for these fees. Additionally the fees are not controlled by NERSA. NERSA only regulates the R/kWh

For me: ~81% comes from Solar ~156kWh / R376 from grid, prepaid per month ~656kWh / R1,762 from sun, saving per month ~812kWh / R2,264 total if no Solar+Battery per month Note: Rand amounts are based on prepaid CoJ for corresponding kWh Will save more Rands when CoJ implements increases in July 2024.

Thanks for the update. 1) The R130 and R70+VAT on prepaid is an extra TAX that is unjustified as the prepaid r/kWh and bands are higher than postpaid. R63.3m per month / R760m per year of additional TAX. The concept of pre-paid is that it's a pay-as-you-go and not a mixture. How are they going to implement this? Will it require me to buy R230 of tax first before I can buy 1 unit or will it be added to the rates bill. If it's on the rates bill this will be a problem for owners who rent. >Though the City needs money, so somewhere they are going to feed Paul but rob Peter to compensate I don't see why we (Peter) should be forced to pay for incompetence and corruption (Paul): Shocking levels of corruption uncovered at City Power amid allegations involving the chairman’s wife (2017) see https://businesstech.co.za/news/trending/157563/shocking-levels-of-corruption-uncovered-at-city-power-amid-allegations-involving-the-chairmans-wife/ Executive who lost City Power’s R2bn to alleged corruption returns to manage R259m project (2020) see https://www.iol.co.za/the-star/news/executive-who-lost-city-powers-r2bn-to-alleged-corruption-returns-to-manage-r259m-project-0f3b2b97-baea-43a9-81ef-f7ebd3a22907 South Africa: City Power Managers Appear in Court for Multimillion Rand Fraud (2017) see https://allafrica.com/stories/201710100831.html Additionally CoJ is not being incentivised to be efficient or corruption free - they can just raise taxes. For example: If CoJ had ensured that center of Johannesburg and Hillbrow and Joburg South (Rosettenville, La Rochelle), etc had been maintained and kept safe (crime free), kept clean and desirable and up-market a "world class African city" then CoJ would be getting high property rates from these these areas. Instead they let Johannesburg degrade into a dump with reduced property values and rates and the ratepayers are now having to pay ever increasing taxes to compensate.

Seems I misunderstood the requirements to qualify for CoJ Expanded Social Package (ESP) See https://joburg.org.za/services_/Pages/City Services/Social Package/Expanded-Social-Package0217-1439.aspx Proposed pre-paid electricity prepaid (low) prepaid (high) changes: Proposed Tariffs

Yep, sent email to [email protected] and also sent comment via web objection form - https://share.hsforms.com/12W3qPiCHRti63nixy5-ysw469tl Apparently there 275,373 Prepaid Electricity meters in CoJ. R1.59b per year extra income - maybe a bit less due to prepaid (low) indigent customers. I’ve been informed that CoJ has ~275,373 customers on prepaid electricity. CoJ make the process of being classified as “prepaid (low) indigent customer” difficult with a high barrier in that you need to own your own home. This barrier results in over 90% of prepaid customers being classified as prepaid (high). A quick calculation: This shows that R807m per year Service Charge (meter reading fee) is just a scam. You can store 275,373 user records in Excel or use redundant cloud services for less than R1m per year. These figures show that CoJ have not revealed the costs and is obviously a scam and must me rejected.

TIP: Been using 64bit beta versions for a few days 2024-04-05 - 64bit 2024-04-12 - 64bit 2024-04-16 - 64bit Seems there is a memory leak in beam.smp - growing by ~400MBytes/day. Depending on how much RAM+SWAP your device has, may be prudent to restart SA to prevent OOM. Run $ top or $ free -m or $ PID=$(pgrep "beam.smp") $ grep "^Vm" /proc/$PID/status or # pmap -x $PID over a few hours/days to monitor. Vendor is looking into this and hopefully fix will be released soon.

Not 100% sure of all the benefits as I'm just a regular user. As a regular user, you unlikely to notice any difference as the vendor updates & maintains both 32bit & 64bit versions. I don't think ssh access and kiosk mode are available on 32bit version. For me: ssh access This is important for me as I use the RPI4 to run some python code that records cell data from my batteries Previously I had to hack the device to enable ssh to run my python battery cell app. Improved security by removal of ssh on frp proxy Update to Debian 12 with recent versions of Python Updated versions of InfluxDB, MQTT (mosquito), Grafana These are embedded apps, the new versions won't make a difference to regular users. Normal SA updates only seems to update the Erlang App If you have an RPI4 or RPI5 with 4GB of RAM, you have a potent device. With ssh access you could install Docker and a container to run HA... I would still recommend a separate home-lab server for Docker/HA and leave the SA device alone. For me the benefit of SA is the mqtt integration that exposes the collected data to my home-lab. In conclusion "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" - if it's working for you and has the features you need leave it alone.

Reserved for future info

Just upgraded to Solar-Assistant 64bit - some nice features https://solar-assistant.io/help/updates/changelog 2024-04-05Beta New features: Released 64-bit Raspberry PI SD card image. Add HDMI output configuration option to switch between kiosk and console. Add SSH configuration option to enable/disable SSH key and password based authentication. Add Bluetooth configuration option switch between disabled, hidden and auto pairing. Add power management for Luxpower inverters. Add power management for Growatt TL-XH inverters. Support for GoodWe ET inverters. Support for Seplos V3 via "USB modbus" protocol. Added reading of serial, firmware version and alarms via "USB Narada" protocol. What I noticed: SA Image is based on Debian 12 64bit - previous was based on Debian 10 32bit Ability to allow ssh into the RPI - previously I had to hack the image to allow ssh Improved security by removal of ssh on frp proxy. Kiosk mode - displays SA on HDMI Might be useful to have a local display showing live SA. I'm thinking of adding a HDMI display to my RPI4 eg https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/accessories/display.html so I can see SA when in the garage. ssh access is configured via Configure -> Configure Local Access. The process I followed to go from 32bit to 64bit: Download the 64bit image and write the image to a new/spare SD card - I used a spare 32GB card Using a different SD card allows you to revert if the new image does not work as expected. Make a note/print-screen of SA settings eg USB ports are used for Inverter & Battery, etc. mqtt settings: Configuration -> mqtt -> Advanced button inverter & battery settings: Configuration -> battery -> Advanced button Make a backup via Configuration -> Storage -> view detail -> backup This will create a backup that you can save to your PC. There is a button to download the influxdb backup.zip Shutdown & poweroff the old 32bit version - Configure -> System -> Shutdown Install the new SD card with 64bit version and boot the RPI Check your DHCP server/nmap to locate the 64bit SA on your network Access the 64bit version with a browser http://192.168.7.189 in my case Check the site Owner/Site ID under Configure -> System Since you are using the same RPI hardware/machine-id, SA will connect to existing site license. Might take a minute to retrieve the license from the SA cloud. Restore your influxdb backup via Configuration -> Storage -> view detail -> upload Remember to import the backup as well. There is a button to import the backup. Check your history - mine was fine, but there is a resample history link. Configure USB ports and other settings as per print-screen (2) above Check for any updates - I'm on the beta program and on Software version: 2024-04-05 Enjoy.

Not sure if the Python library TinyTuya https://github.com/jasonacox/tinytuya can be used inside HA. I use TinyTuya in my own code which works locally My requirement was to save the IoT data into a PostgreSQL database. Unfortunately you still need to register the Tuya device, but once registered I guess you could block internet access from your IoT vlan. My preference is to flash the devices with Tasmota where possible.

See attached "COJ MEETING SCHEDULE FOR IDP BUDGET AND TARIFFS PUBLIC OUTREACH 2024" Hopefully we can object to the ridiculous proposal to have a "Service Fee (Meter Reading)" on prepaid electricity. MS-Teams links in the PDF Meeting-Schedule-for-IDP-Budget-and-Tariffs-Public-Outreach-2024.pdf

Thanks, Found the link https://joburg.org.za/Pages/2024-25-IDP-Medium-Term-Budget-Draft-Rates-and-Tariffs.aspx Some of the feedback meetings are on MS-TEAMS There is also an e-form that you can use to comment - first link above,

Do you have a link to the schedule of CoJ meetings?