Eskom slams plan to punish solar power users with 1,000% higher prices than mines - 

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/432168-eskom-slams-plan-to-punish-solar-power-users-with-1000-higher-prices-than-mines.html

31 minutes ago, PowerUser said:

Eskom slams plan to punish solar power users with 1,000% higher prices than mines - 

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/432168-eskom-slams-plan-to-punish-solar-power-users-with-1000-higher-prices-than-mines.html

Most of the guys will disconnect Eskom and get a gen

The other option is to just downgrade to a 20A "light" service (i forget what they call it), it is exempt from this fee.

4 minutes ago, YellowTapemeasure said:

The other option is to just downgrade to a 20A "light" service (i forget what they call it), it is exempt from this fee.

That's also a great idea. 

Any body that lives in a house that is older than 10-15 years probably still has one of those black dial power consumption meters. If you feed back into the grid, those dials might even run backwards, I don't know. That is probably the case for 50-70% of the houses in the country. Those meters only has little dials running round and round with one output - kWh. They have no idea when you used the power, peak period or low demand period. If you are on pay as you go, those prepaid meters probably has some intelligence built into them. If they want to start charging us for using power at high demand period, they will first have to replace all those old power consumption meters in the country. 

I wish I had the old style meter.. 

So sad. I've been waiting since Aug 2021 for my export license as I've got a smart meter. 

11 hours ago, Don said:

Any body that lives in a house that is older than 10-15 years probably still has one of those black dial power consumption meters. If you feed back into the grid, those dials might even run backwards, I don't know. That is probably the case for 50-70% of the houses in the country. Those meters only has little dials running round and round with one output - kWh. They have no idea when you used the power, peak period or low demand period. If you are on pay as you go, those prepaid meters probably has some intelligence built into them. If they want to start charging us for using power at high demand period, they will first have to replace all those old power consumption meters in the country. 

With the old dial type kwhr meter, can somebody please confirm that the numbers also reverse when the dial is turning in reverse? 

2 hours ago, Gareth_ZA said:

I wish I had the old style meter.. 

So sad. I've been waiting since Aug 2021 for my export license as I've got a smart meter. 

when you say "export license " assume you mean feed in to grid, if so what part of the country are you based in

Yes feed back to the grid. I am in Westville KZN, so my application is sitting at the Pinetown council offices apparently. I am hoping to go and follow up personally next week. 

 

Do you have any advice for me? 

Edited February 5, 20223 yr by Gareth_ZA

2 hours ago, Vaal said:

With the old dial type kwhr meter, can somebody please confirm that the numbers also reverse when the dial is turning in reverse? 

I can confirm my wheel meters numbers don't, and its very old. Apparently there are some out there that do (urban legend ?)

When I was using a grid tie inverter unused power would be sent to the non essential output, covering the kitchen, stove and geyser in those days, that wheel would spin backwards at quite a rate. In my defense Li Ion as we have it today was barely a gleam in the solar industry's eye back then.

This was apparently part of Nersa's recommendations which Eskom is fighting, this and other various ideas Nersa came up with  => Eskom slams plan to punish solar power users with 1,000% higher prices than mines 

 

Edited February 5, 20223 yr by Nitrious

3 hours ago, Vaal said:

With the old dial type kwhr meter, can somebody please confirm that the numbers also reverse when the dial is turning in reverse? 

It depends what make of KWH meter you have some meters have a little symbol on the front with a round gear and a lock lever in place, those cannot count backwards. I was at a installation on Tuesday where there is a Sangamo Weston disc meter with a 8KW inverter and the reading was in fact moving down wards.

@Gareth_ZA, I am in Cape Town and researched the grid feed in offered by the council, the bi-directional meter is at customer's cost from R8.5k to R10k, plus a R100 per month admin fee. I have a 6.5 kWp array, which according solar calculators can potentially produce 10 MWh per year, I consumed 7 MWh last year, so I am at the cusp of being financially viable, but obviously it depends on what kind of winter we have.

So have not signed up yet.

Our weather atm, solar output could be better

Edited February 5, 20223 yr by Nitrious

18 minutes ago, Nitrious said:

Our weather atm, solar output could be better

Yes, true, but don't you enjoy the *daily* free panel rinses?

On 2022/02/05 at 1:34 PM, LoodPyp said:

Yes, true, but don't you enjoy the *daily* free panel rinses?

you'd think so, but still leaves a residue, had to clean them a few days ago (trying to max what little I can get), always wonder what the neighbors think when they see me up there with a foam mop and hosepipe.

Edited February 6, 20223 yr by Nitrious

1 hour ago, Nitrious said:

you'd think so, but still leaves a residue, had to clean them a few days ago (trying to max what little I can get), always wonder what the neighbors think when they see me up there with a foam mop and hosepipe.

 

Pigeon poop always leaves a residue.

3 hours ago, Gerrie said:

I was at a installation on Tuesday where there is a Sangamo Weston disc meter with a 8KW inverter and the reading was in fact moving down wards.

That is ideal. Then you use Eskom as a "battery". You export say 4kWh to the grid during the day and when the sun sets, the first 4kWh you draw from the grid is yours, free of charge. 

1 hour ago, Don said:

That is ideal. Then you use Eskom as a "battery". You export say 4kWh to the grid during the day and when the sun sets, the first 4kWh you draw from the grid is yours, free of charge. 

Yes, this would be ideal if it was allowed but to be on the legal side of things the settings were set to not feed in to the grid and always receive the 50W from grid. What happened was the ct coil wires were damaged when other wiring was done in the roof and without the ct coil things did not work as planned so there was a feed in to grid, the meter was spinning in reverse with quite a speed sometimes up to 7KW after some fault finding it was discovered that the ct coil wires were damaged they were fixed and the feed in is now blocked again.

14 minutes ago, Gerrie said:

Yes, this would be ideal if it was allowed but to be on the legal side of things the settings were set to not feed in to the grid and always receive the 50W from grid.

Thanks @Gerrie. My inverter cannot feed into the grind, even if I wanted to. 

On 2022/02/05 at 12:43 PM, Tariq said:

@Gareth_ZA, I am in Cape Town and researched the grid feed in offered by the council, the bi-directional meter is at customer's cost from R8.5k to R10k, plus a R100 per month admin fee. I have a 6.5 kWp array, which according solar calculators can potentially produce 10 MWh per year, I consumed 7 MWh last year, so I am at the cusp of being financially viable, but obviously it depends on what kind of winter we have.

So have not signed up yet.

It is tricky because also the sell rate is cheaper than the buy rate 

16 hours ago, Gareth_ZA said:

It is tricky because also the sell rate is cheaper than the buy rate 

There's also the unfair practice of "net-zero", your electricity bill over the year can't be positive.
IMHO, this is a problem.
Metro uses TOU rates and metro should also allow for unlimited feed-in to allow for home owners to make a profit.
This would be an incentive to install Solar+Battery for feed-in.
Electricity supplied to metro from home owners is much cheaper than Eskom.
If I could make a profit, I would add an extra battery and sell back at peak to make $$$.
After installing Solar+Battery, my bill is already near zero, so there is little incentive to grid-feed, so I don't bother.

Edited February 7, 20223 yr by system32
Clarity