March 30, 20179 yr According to the Proposed budget for City of Cape Town for 2017/2018 Electricity: increase pf an average of 3,34% – down from 7,78% last year 60 kWh of electricity free of charge per month per household for those using less than 250 kWh per month 25 kWh of electricity free of charge per month per household for those using more than 250 kWh but less than 450 kWh per month on average with a property value of R400 000 or less So there is an additional incentive to cut usage below 250KW/month. Going to be difficult to reach, but maybe a good incentive to make the Financial Sums work.
March 30, 20179 yr Author On how it is currently worded the property valuation only refer to the second one But there is a chance that the stuffed up the wording and that it will only apply to properties below R400k
March 30, 20179 yr 20 minutes ago, Mark said: Property value may be an issue though... I think so. On my latest electricity account I only used 176 kWh for the month and I had to pay the full amount, nothing free. They made sure nothing is for free for us guys. It seems you need to live in shack to qualify.
March 30, 20179 yr 50 minutes ago, Louw said: According to the Proposed budget for City of Cape Town for 2017/2018 Electricity: increase pf an average of 3,34% – down from 7,78% last year 60 kWh of electricity free of charge per month per household for those using less than 250 kWh per month 25 kWh of electricity free of charge per month per household for those using more than 250 kWh but less than 450 kWh per month on average with a property value of R400 000 or less So there is an additional incentive to cut usage below 250KW/month. Going to be difficult to reach, but maybe a good incentive to make the Financial Sums work. Shucks with a bit of luck I might be able to make it on the 60kwh band. Now I just need to lay down an extension to @The Terrible Triplett
March 30, 20179 yr 3 hours ago, PaulF007 said: Now I just need to lay down an extension to @The Terrible Triplett No. (cwl)
March 31, 20179 yr Author So CoCT published their Budget in the paper this morning: The devil is in the detail: "Residensiele kliente met geinstalleerde kredietmeters sal na die tuisgebruiker tarief oorgeplaas word, tensy hulle onder een van die kategroiee vir verlaagde tariewe val" If you have a Prepaid meter you will be moved to the "Tuisgebruiker" tariff if your property value is more than R1m. Main Difference: Daily charge of R8.21 for having access to electricity under "Tuisgebruiker" (vs Rnil previously) for daily charge with the charge per KW reducing for usage below 600kw/month. Being a Residential SSEG the daily charge is R13.03. I think for a lot of people the Daily charge under SSEG was the reason for not going SSEG. But if they bring it in for all users it might change the sum.
March 31, 20179 yr Author It jumped around the past 18 months (Moved in, Installed Solar Geyser, Installed Solar Panels (From old place), Installed borehole with 2 pumps!) But I am expecting it to normalise around 10-15 units in Summer with 15-20 units in winter per day. Almost viable going fully off-grid - Not sure what the wife will say about it!
April 1, 20179 yr On 3/31/2017 at 11:13 AM, Louw said: Main Difference: Daily charge of R8.21 for having access to electricity under "Tuisgebruiker" (vs Rnil previously) for daily charge with the charge per KW reducing for usage below 600kw/month. They are being quite clever about this. Bear with me... If this is still the same as last time I looked into it, and I have no reason to think it wouldn't be, what they did is introduce a service fee BUT this goes along with a slight reduction in per-unit cost so that for the first 600kwh you will spend about the same as you always did (plus the 3.4% increase). So why is this clever? Well, the service was never really free, was it? Even if you used no power at all, it still costs money to maintain the infrastructure. By reintroducing the service fee, one might say this is now more transparent. In addition, this narrows the gap between the normal consumer and the SSEG consumer, so this should now be less of an obstacle, or at least it will be as soon as people start to forget the days when the service was "free". In other words, this is to ENCOURAGE solar use rather than discourage it. They ensure they get paid for maintenance of the infrastructure, and if you really look into it: It costs much less than a battery bank. Additionally, this also discourages complete grid independence (it makes sense to buy 600kwh because it is now CHEAP compared to anything else), which ensures that the more well-to-do citizens continue to fund the city's upliftment activities (ie housing and FBE: Free Basic Electricity). I have an additional plan that I'm already following since December: I buy 600kwh every month even if I don't use all of it. My meter allows me to load up to 9999kwh, but in winter I use way more than I generate. In other words... I buy cheap electricity in summer to use in winter, or that is the plan. At the moment it looks like I'm going to run into the expensive units by June... which is technically just the beginning of winter, BUT... that means there is a LOT of room to gain savings here and essentially "store" it on my prepaid meter.
April 1, 20179 yr When we had a flat in Graaff-Reinet I would by 300 units every month for the same reason.
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