Hi Power forum Family,

What is the process, procedure & laws regarding feeding energy into the grid?

Thanks 😀
 

It is different depending on your local municipality. It may be a good idea to engage with them to find out what their stance is.

@FJ25, Where are you located, can advise if you live in Cape Town 

As above, it is municipality dependent - However generally they don't like it (money and electricity management)

Cape Town and surrounds - It is legally required to register your solar installation and provide them with a CoC, if it is any way shared with the grid supply to your home or business

Other areas - Whilst you can be a bit off the radar, feeding back to the grid is highly discouraged by almost every municipality as it makes their electricity planning very difficult

If you keep your solar setup "off grid" most of the time and don't try feed power back to the municipality, then (at the moment - although the law may change in future) you are in the clear.

So if you want to feed back, then you need to get approval from municipality.

Note: This is just legal implications, I know many that feed back to the grid ignoring municipal implications - your call

On 2022/02/19 at 9:31 AM, YellowTapemeasure said:

It is different depending on your local municipality. It may be a good idea to engage with them to find out what their stance is.

Thanks, been trying with the local municipality for months, get pushed from pillar to post. Having absolutely no joy...

On 2022/02/19 at 9:38 AM, Tariq said:

@FJ25, Where are you located, can advise if you live in Cape Town 

Hi, Thanks. I'm unfortunately in Pretoria.

Don't just do it. Your meter may run backwards when you feedback, it may not. Some just know that current is passing through them and they just tick over as it does.

My own opinion is that municipalities don't want us to feedback. It reduces their revenues, and it may create a situation where they have lots of juice on the grid at times when they can't use it. So they make it theoretically possible, but also not very attractive.

EG in Johannesburg, if I want to feedback I can do one of two things. The first is to just feedback, and I can tell you that my pre-paid meter is not going to see the current that I feed in as any different from the current I draw from the grid.

The second option is to convert to their reseller tariff. But this requires more than just signing up.

• I must get a special bi-directional meter installed. They supply this, but I pay for the meter and the installation.
• I will pay about R700 a month in fixed fees irrespective of how much grid power I actually use
• I have to be a net consumer - must draw more from the grid than I feed in
• They repurchase at way below the rate at which they sell to me.

So I've done the sums. It would cost me money to resell. And even if I got my consumption down to a net 0.1 kw/h per month, I would still have to recover those flat fees (which I can't, because I have to be a net consumer) and the cost of the meter. So it's cheaper for me to just set my system to not export. This is the situation I mentioned earlier: COJ will say "OF COURSE you can sell back to the grid." And you can. But if you do the sums you won't want to.

Do the homework. Your municipality will have their tariffs, and any special requirements for cases like yours, in the public domain. Tshwane may be more generous than COJ. But get the tariffs, find out about any fixed or one off costs, and do some modelling of costs and benefits.

2 hours ago, Bobster said:

My own opinion is that municipalities don't want us to feedback.

I got the same impression. It's the reason I opted for an off grid solution and saved me many problems, administratively and technically.

I'm afraid time will come they will go on their knees to beg us for back feeding.

The Municipality of Mosselbay has declared its aim to become energy wise independent (from Eskom?). How could they achieve this without the back feed from us solar and wind harvesters?

Edited February 24, 20224 yr by Beat

1 hour ago, Beat said:

I got the same impression. It's the reason I opted for an off grid solution and saved me many problems, administratively and technically.

I'm afraid time will come they will go on their knees to beg us for back feeding.

The Municipality of Mosselbay has declared its aim to become energy wise independent (from Eskom?). How could they achieve this without the back feed from us solar and wind harvesters?

The simple answer is that they get wind farms, or solar farms with storage, to inject power into the grid. Or even get somebody to revamp an old power station. That way they buy electricity from them and sell it to residents at the regular price. They don't have to worry about feedback tariffs. It is embedded generators that are a problem for municipalities.

Edited February 24, 20224 yr by Bobster
fix freudian slip

One thing I don't get is the sudden brouhaha (coming mostly from one political party) about a municipality being able to procure it's own power. That has been allowed for at least 2 years (IE since before the lock down) for all municipalities who are not in debt to Eskom. Johannesburg have been doing it for a while, buying power from the old Kelvin station which is now privately owned.

There are two parts of the puzzzle. One is perhaps more easily solved than the other.

1) You have to somebody willing and able to sell you power
2) You then have to go to Eskom and say "we have procured X Mw/h for our own use and at our expense and so we think we don't have to shed at stage Z and lower." And they need to agree with that.

Presumably if you get enough of (1) you can sever ties with Eskom, but I'd think that a risky proposition. It means that if you have hassles you can't buy in, and if you have surplus you can't export. So Mosselbay is, I think, going to have to stay connected to the grid. OK... since Eskom is being split into a generating entity and a grid operating entity, maybe they can dress things up as "not dealing with Eskom".

There are fundamental thoughts to the issue.

With more and more grid tied power producing customers the local or municipality owned grid must become a public infrastructure similar to streets and roads. Everybody can use it in either direction. There are of course costs for that: investment, maintenance and repair. We can pay for that in two ways: either usage related with tariffs or assets related with property taxes like the roads.

There is also a technical problem to it. If maintenance or repair work is required the working crew can simply switch the concerned branch off and its save to work on it. If there are back feeding customers however that becomes a problem. They will have to find a way to switch off all the back feeding customers individually along with it in order to work safely.

40 minutes ago, Beat said:

There is also a technical problem to it. If maintenance or repair work is required the working crew can simply switch the concerned branch off and its save to work on it. If there are back feeding customers however that becomes a problem. They will have to find a way to switch off all the back feeding customers individually along with it in order to work safely.

This is why COCT want to see paperwork for your solar system. A properly installed system won't feed back into the grid if the grid is down. This is a safety feature for the reasons you mention.

57 minutes ago, Bobster said:

This is why COCT want to see paperwork for your solar system. A properly installed system won't feed back into the grid if the grid is down. This is a safety feature for the reasons you mention.

How can inverters detect that the grid is down if several backfeeder maintain it on voltage?

2 minutes ago, Beat said:

How can inverters detect that the grid is down if several backfeeder maintain it on voltage?

OK.... me no technical, but I know there is some device between the grid and my inverter which monitors the grid and disconnects from the grid when the grid goes down ("down" actually turns out to be < 200 V). That sounds back to front, I know, but that's what it does, and the affect of that is that if the grid is turned off so somebody can work on the cables, they won't get a shock from my system.

Now, if all systems operate in the same way (and they all should), there is no problem. But I know (not very well) a man who went "off grid" for (he says) about 8 grand. Heaven only knows what his system does when the grid goes down. So proper installation is important.

If there were enough such jerry built systems in my neck of the wood then the problem you suggest could happen, but I suspect that if it's just one or two then what they output will get dragged down so quickly by all the other properties, that law abiding systems like mine will still disconnect. 

On 2022/02/25 at 12:53 PM, Beat said:

How can inverters detect that the grid is down if several backfeeder maintain it on voltage?

When the grid is down all those inverters feeding back to the grid are also down. 

The grid is down when no voltage - LOL

@FJ25At a feedback rate of 10c per unit plus the bi-directional meter cost  it is just not worth it in PTA.

Edited February 27, 20224 yr by Scorp007

21 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

When the grid is down all those inverters feeding back to the grid are also down. 

The grid is down when no voltage - LOL

If the connected backfeeders together have sufficient power to cover the actual load on the disconnected grid branch the voltage would not go down. But I agree that this is unlikely to happen as the single phase inverters are feeding into a 3 phase system at the transformer. The situation is more complex. As the number of grid tied inverters increases, it could become a problem.

I explain it with an analogy: Imagine a water tank with input and output pipes in witch you want to maintain the water level (voltage). The level is maintained by feeding exactly the same quantity of water into it as is consumed on the outputs. If the main input (grid) is shut off the level will lower, except if some consumers back feed sufficient water to maintain the level.

Edited February 28, 20224 yr by Beat

1 hour ago, Beat said:

The situation is more complex. As the number of grid tied inverters increases, it could become a problem.

That is exactly why the 3600W limit is there.

10 hours ago, P1000 said:

That is exactly why the 3600W limit is there.

??? Inform me what that limit is. From whom? To what? I want to learn.

On 2022/02/24 at 7:43 AM, FJ25 said:

Thanks, been trying with the local municipality for months, get pushed from pillar to post. Having absolutely no joy...

First of all, what type of meter do you have, and have you tested if it can "go in reverse", or does it still charge if you "Export"?🤔

30 minutes ago, Beat said:

??? Inform me what that limit is. From whom? To what? I want to learn.

Covered elsewhere on this forum. It's the maximum solar pv that you may connect to the municipal grid for importing/exporting if your home has got a 60A main circuit breaker. It's basically a quarter of the maximum power that you could draw from the grid before your circuit breaker trips.

12 hours ago, GreenFields said:

Covered elsewhere on this forum. It's the maximum solar pv that you may connect to the municipal grid for importing/exporting if your home has got a 60A main circuit breaker. It's basically a quarter of the maximum power that you could draw from the grid before your circuit breaker trips.

Thank you for the info. Do all municipalities the same?

One more reason not to go grid tied. I already installed 4kW nominal PV power. I harvest the excess solar energy to the battery and consume it after sunset. 

Hi All,

I found policies in this regard for the Tshwane Municipality, see attached.

Unfortunately the policy is not clear, however, my understanding is:

- You pay a fixed monthly administrative fee of about R200

- For every KW you feed back, you may consume that later

- Excess power fed back will pay out at about 10c per Kw

- There is a registration process but can become expensive if your PV system is over a given threshold.

I think this may be a viable option if one implement a grid tie inverter and use Eskom as a battery.

Annexure D - Electricity Tariffs 2021.22 -Part 1 (2).pdf Updated-rules-for-Embedded-Generation-EG-Solar-PV-installers-in-Tshwane.pdf

34 minutes ago, Pieter Lourens said:

Hi All,

I found policies in this regard for the Tshwane Municipality, see attached.

Unfortunately the policy is not clear, however, my understanding is:

- You pay a fixed monthly administrative fee of about R200

- For every KW you feed back, you may consume that later

- Excess power fed back will pay out at about 10c per Kw

- There is a registration process but can become expensive if your PV system is over a given threshold.

I think this may be a viable option if one implement a grid tie inverter and use Eskom as a battery.

Annexure D - Electricity Tariffs 2021.22 -Part 1 (2).pdf 338.13 kB · 0 downloads Updated-rules-for-Embedded-Generation-EG-Solar-PV-installers-in-Tshwane.pdf 126.24 kB · 0 downloads

Thanks for the information.

Actually it seems as if you export 80 units a month you have recovered your Admin fee. Based on the 4kw limit for a 60A main breaker you could generate 630kwh per month on average. 550kwh is then your saving or self consumption. Quite a cheap battery if no allowance is made to sell at 10c per unit and remain a nett user.

Edited July 10, 20224 yr by Scorp007

3 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

Actually it seems as if you export 80 units a month you have recovered your Admin fee. Based on the 4kw limit for a 60A main breaker you could generate 630kwh per month on average. 550kwh is then your saving or self consumption. Quite a cheap battery if no allowance is made to sell at 10c per unit and remain a nett user.

Yep. The issue is that NERSA and the Municipalities does not like us using the grid as a battery and wants to change the tariff structure. However, with today's Eskom issues those amendments may take a while to implement.

49 minutes ago, Pieter Lourens said:

Hi All,

I found policies in this regard for the Tshwane Municipality, see attached.

Unfortunately the policy is not clear, however, my understanding is:

- You pay a fixed monthly administrative fee of about R200

- For every KW you feed back, you may consume that later

- Excess power fed back will pay out at about 10c per Kw

- There is a registration process but can become expensive if your PV system is over a given threshold.

I think this may be a viable option if one implement a grid tie inverter and use Eskom as a battery.

Annexure D - Electricity Tariffs 2021.22 -Part 1 (2).pdf 338.13 kB · 1 download Updated-rules-for-Embedded-Generation-EG-Solar-PV-installers-in-Tshwane.pdf 126.24 kB · 1 download

I think you are reading that wrong, but why don't you go ahead and apply and let us know what you learn?