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Proposed tariffs for solar users


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Good morning all.

I am curious to hear your thoughts on this proposed tariff for us solar users.

Below is a recap of what i had installed and attached is an electricity bill

Quick recap on it.

12 x 425w canadian solar panels

1x Hubble am 2 5.5kw battery

1 x Luxpower sna 5kw eco hybrid inverter

Prior to this system my average  monthly usage is 460 kw per month.I am a small household of primarily 1 person.

Under the new proposed system I would be paying a large tariff.

Looking back at my consumption since the installation these figures tally and averages at about 15.5 kw per day.Most of that is now coming from my solar system and battery.

Based on their logic,I would now use less solar to jack up my eskom bill to pay a smaller tariff and save my system for loadshedding only.Of course none of it makes sense but we know who is in charge.

I also had a 5250 litre water tank with a pump and 4 filters installed so in terms of those utilities I can be off the grid as the water system was plumbed into my house.

I am contemplating adding another string of panels,inverter and battery so that I am totally off without even having to think about power management.

I have attached an electricity bill for fun

I would to like others thoughts on the tariff proposals which make no sense.

 

elec bill with reading data.pdf

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Personally I think the whole new Eskom tariff proposal for solar users is completely unconstitutional. Here is my thoughts on this. Eskom has a product which they are unable to supply, yet if you do not use large amounts of this unavailable product, you have to pay a huge tariff for what you are still not going to get. 

This is the same as if I had business that sells toasters for example whereby you order 1 unit and I send you that 1 unit, yet you must pay a as if you have ordered and received 10 units because my business would have sold you another 9 if it had stock irrespective of whether you only wanted 1 in the first place. I mean what kind of logic is this?

 

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The proposal by Eskom is not new. It was made a year ago, and NERSA somehow never got around to it. 

It's also not aimed at solar users, though they may notice it more, and the idea isn't new. 

Citizens of Jhb on the domestic default post paid package have for some years paid over R700 per month for a connection and for the costs of administering the account. 

Eskom already build in a flat fee on the tariff that has been used as an example. They want to increase the flat fee, and reduce the charge per kw/h. 

Heavy consumers will, in fact, see their bill go down. That seems wrong to me. The poor should be spared, and frugality should be rewarded. Also those of us on prepaid tariffs should get a consideration because we pay before we consume, which is good terms for any business. 

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In the KZN Midlands, those who receive power from the municipality already pay an exorbitant amount just to be connected. This is called an MCB charge and is relative to the Amperage of the MCB, and area you reside in. Mine is 50A, and before I pay for even 1kW/h of usage, the basic charges are something like R1068.00. So this type of customer abuse is nothing new in South Africa, and will force many people like myself to eventually "go off-grid".🤔

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2 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

@TimCamdoes all of the Midlands fall into one municipality? 

Nope, different areas and municipalities, charges even change per suburb. If you are in a "high income" suburb, they fleece you, so they can provide cheaper services to the "less fortunate" suburbs. I challenged the mayor at a meeting once about this disparity in charges, and  was flat out told, I and those in my area must pay for the less fortunate. Straight out communism. This was already 6+ years ago.

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Well in COJ the electricity charges are uniform across all suburbs. There is a subsidised package for indigent households. This is granted, or not, on the basis of the income of the person in whose name the property is registered and the total value of the properties they own as per the municipal valuation roll. 

Oh, and your account may not be in arrears when you apply. 

There are also rates rebates for senior citizens based on a sliding age/income scale. Again these are only granted if your account is up to date. 

I don't mind a bit of subsidising going on, as long as it is genuinely poor people who get relief, and the relief is real. 

Some parts of Soweto are still supplied directly by Eskom, and thus are subject to Eskom's "load reduction" program. Which is really extra, targeted load shedding. 

Edited by Bobster.
sppeling
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Our solar system is pretty much well dialed in now, so my wife and I have decided we are going to use the month of August to see how going 100% off-grid is going to work out for us. We are already low energy users after adjusting how and when we use electricity so hopefully this exercise will help determine if there is anything we need to adjust on our system or our way of doing things.
I will start a new thread and list all issues and highlights of doing this with our medium sized system and see if we can rid ourselves of this eskom crap :)

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I'm on CoJ pre-paid so the Eskom proposal does not apply to me.

From what I understand, they looking to split Eskom into 3, Generation, Transmission, Distribution.
The R938 would be for Transmission & Distribution "Network usage".
Seem excessive as the network is already built and paid for.

CoJ did try for the last two years to introduce a "Basic Charge" of R200 fee on pre-paid - this failed due to pressure from consumers.
In 2019/20 massively adjusted the pre-paid bands to make pre-paid more expensive - but still cheaper than post-paid.
image.png.de252074874289621f663965de73499f.png

Below is the bill for CoJ for 700kWh per month usage on post-paid 60A - taken from CoJ flyer.
image.png.cef326c8f984ee0ac373482dbd7c1124.png
There is a missing 6c/kWh DSM levy on both of the above - R48.30 (inc VAT)

R938/pm will be enough to fund expansion to my PV+Battery to go from 80% to 95%.
I'd use a generator for the other 5%.

R938/pm is expensive and so is CoJ's Fixed Charges of R825.61/pm
 

Edited by system32
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21 minutes ago, Corné said:

I want to know from the collective knowledge... Lets say I can go totally off-grid, will the municipality allow me to do that? In other words, to come and disconnect me?

There are probably already by-laws that they will use to "force" you to stay connected so that they can charge the extortionist fees/taxes.
If those by-laws do not yet exist I bet they will soon.

I am also not too sure how constitutional "forcing" will be, but if covid was anything to go by they will simply try using "for the greater good" argument and most likely get away with it.

Edited by WannabeSolarSparky
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So apparently we all jumped to conclusions about what Eskom is up to?!

We are going to have to watch this story carefully to see how this is going to play out.

From what I now understand is that eskom is proposing paying solar the same fee per unit at a 1:1 ratio.

So if that is going to be the case then it may become feasible to feed back to the grid?!

 

Edited by WannabeSolarSparky
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19 hours ago, Corné said:

I want to know from the collective knowledge... Lets say I can go totally off-grid, will the municipality allow me to do that? In other words, to come and disconnect me?

as far as I am aware you can do it. There is a huge cost involved as they supposedly have to physically remove the cable to your property. 
The concern here is that if you should ever consider selling your property, the next owners would pay even more to have the connection re-established, unless of course they also wish to be off the grid, which may limit the interested buyer base.

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2 hours ago, zsde said:

There is a huge cost involved as they supposedly have to physically remove the cable to your property. 

nope, unless you're rural, they'll just flip the breaker in the box in the street, if you're rural, then they'll send the guys to remove the HT fuses to your transformer, either way no real *huge* costs involved...

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7 minutes ago, PowerUser said:

"Consumers use solar to generate most of their electricity during the day, which Eskom argues forces it to ramp up at a faster rate to meet evening demand. This has a significant negative impact on the power system, Eskom said at the time."

What a lot of intelligence undermining hogwash.
Had there not been a solar user the demand in the evening would be exactly the same as it is now. There used to be a finite amount of power that they could generate with all their power stations. Their lack of skills and maintenance over the last 2 decades has firstly halved the generating capacity and secondly, the induced failures on those power stations still operating has further caused a halving of the generating capacity again. 
These power stations were funded by none other than the tax payers. These same tax payers then funded even more power generation by starting their own generation at home, be it solar, wind or other means , primarily to not be dependent on an intermittent service whose base fees are based on 24/7 service. This takes the pressure of the failing system.
They know darn well that the demand at night has always been constant, yet they blatantly spread garbage statements like this to place the blame on those consumers that are actually pro-active and as a result try to support a more stable system. Another example of creating a two tier society where those that depend purely on Eskom are used as political puppets to gang up and tax those that are trying to create a better solution.
Those that still accept and swallow these Kindergarten style official statements must be indoctrinated to the core or have lost their own ability of thought. 

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3 hours ago, zsde said:

"Consumers use solar to generate most of their electricity during the day, which Eskom argues forces it to ramp up at a faster rate to meet evening demand. This has a significant negative impact on the power system, Eskom said at the time."

What a lot of intelligence undermining hogwash.
Had there not been a solar user the demand in the evening would be exactly the same as it is now. There used to be a finite amount of power that they could generate with all their power stations. Their lack of skills and maintenance over the last 2 decades has firstly halved the generating capacity and secondly, the induced failures on those power stations still operating has further caused a halving of the generating capacity again. 
These power stations were funded by none other than the tax payers. These same tax payers then funded even more power generation by starting their own generation at home, be it solar, wind or other means , primarily to not be dependent on an intermittent service whose base fees are based on 24/7 service. This takes the pressure of the failing system.
They know darn well that the demand at night has always been constant, yet they blatantly spread garbage statements like this to place the blame on those consumers that are actually pro-active and as a result try to support a more stable system. Another example of creating a two tier society where those that depend purely on Eskom are used as political puppets to gang up and tax those that are trying to create a better solution.
Those that still accept and swallow these Kindergarten style official statements must be indoctrinated to the core or have lost their own ability of thought. 

Yes and no.

I think the argument is not just an Eskom thing; the famous duck curve is well-known and used by power utilities across the world. I don't think it's entirely hogwash, but it is more applicable to pure grid-tied systems. Customers that would normally be drawing at least their baseload power during the day would instead get it from solar, but as the sun goes down their demand goes from near-zero to full evening peak load. The steeper ramp-up curve is real, and it forces utilities to make greater use of gas or diesel peaker plants if they cannot ramp up the cheaper coal or nuclear power stations as quickly as solar forces them to.

How can one deal with it fairly and effectively? I think by switching to Time-of-Use tariffs if one goes onto solar (thumbs-up Nelson Mandela Bay Metro), and also to enforce the lowering of Notified Maximum Demand when going on solar, thereby incentivising solar users to meet the evening peak demand with battery power. These days hybrid grid-tied inverters with time-of-use and peak-shaving features are common, and the cost of lithium battery storage has come down enough, so that is a real alternative.

Eskom must just think further, and not just use tired old arguments and half-truths to cover up for their shortcomings.

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Between the lines it appears that going completely off-grid will set you free of this Eskom R938 madness.  Am I correct in my observation or is it only wishful thinking.

And what about last nights proposals anounced by the President, requesting South Africans to install PV systems?  Can we believe him or is it a catch - boosting Eskom's R938 Piggy Bank.

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4 hours ago, Cassie said:

Between the lines it appears that going completely off-grid will set you free of this Eskom R938 madness.  Am I correct in my observation or is it only wishful thinking.

And what about last nights proposals anounced by the President, requesting South Africans to install PV systems?  Can we believe him or is it a catch - boosting Eskom's R938 Piggy Bank.

Are you an Eskom direct or municipal customer?

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