I've been reading about various plans that COCT is embarking on to address load shedding. 

They are, of course, including resell to the city of surplus PV power. 

I'm not a technical guy. If I resell my power to the city (any city) how does it STAY in the city? How does it not get dissipated across the greater national grid?

Think of it like water. As long as the city remains a net importer, it essentially won't leave the city. Not that it matters.

Looking at the power from your Goodwe 4.6kW inverter, it might not even leave your street.

It will flow to the nearest consumers, your closest neighbours, powering the basic daytime load of maybe around 5-10 homes.

1 minute ago, GreenFields said:

Looking at the power from your Goodwe 4.6kW inverter, it might not even leave your street.

It will flow to the nearest consumers, your closest neighbours, powering the basic daytime load of maybe around 5-10 homes.

Doh! Of course. It will always take the easiest path.

I'm not sure one can assign electricity in that way. Or at least it's not useful to do so. It's like water running into the Vaal Dam. Once it is in the dam it is pretty irrelevant where the molecule that arrives in my tap originated from. 

Edited October 4, 20223 yr by Speedster

2 hours ago, P1000 said:

Think of it like water. As long as the city remains a net importer, it essentially won't leave the city. Not that it matters.

Well I was thinking of poor old Geordin Hill-Lewis, paying 75c per kWh, and then the kwH ends up in Putsonderwater.

Can someone from CT advise above the feed-in setup they are/planning to get from CoCT. (or other areas)

I believe that a new system/setup is being implemented, whereby one is a paid peanuts for the units one pushes back, as well as restricted in the amount of units one is allowed to push back for credit. Something like, the push back kWh is limited to the units one is consuming.

e.g, if your house only consumes 15kWh, then you will only receive Rx.xx for the first 15 units you push back (per month). Everything above 15kWh is mahala to CoCT.

I hope I understanding of this is incorrect, as this makes any ROI calculation with feed-in useless.

At least LS bypass is priceless, seeing it is not going away any time soon. - if 1000 homes can feed-in 2kw during peak times (10am - 4pm), thats 2MW, not much, but I would like to know how many homes in SA can do this by year end. Only need 500 000 homes to lower LS by one stage during above mentioned times.

The authorities (or whoever determines electricity tarrifs) should reward one for trying to save SA from disaster, not punish those in a position to help.

 

 

12 hours ago, Sidewinder said:

Can someone from CT advise above the feed-in setup they are/planning to get from CoCT. (or other areas)

I believe that a new system/setup is being implemented, whereby one is a paid peanuts for the units one pushes back, as well as restricted in the amount of units one is allowed to push back for credit. Something like, the push back kWh is limited to the units one is consuming.

e.g, if your house only consumes 15kWh, then you will only receive Rx.xx for the first 15 units you push back (per month). Everything above 15kWh is mahala to CoCT.

I hope I understanding of this is incorrect, as this makes any ROI calculation with feed-in useless.

At least LS bypass is priceless, seeing it is not going away any time soon. - if 1000 homes can feed-in 2kw during peak times (10am - 4pm), thats 2MW, not much, but I would like to know how many homes in SA can do this by year end. Only need 500 000 homes to lower LS by one stage during above mentioned times.

The authorities (or whoever determines electricity tarrifs) should reward one for trying to save SA from disaster, not punish those in a position to help.

 

 

I don't think very many homes can do this. As an example, I have 6kWp of panels and use pretty muxh everything I generate until around 2pm most days. After that I have perhaps 2kW spare for an hour or so and then it drops off as the sun gets lower. 

37 minutes ago, Speedster said:

I don't think very many homes can do this. As an example, I have 6kWp of panels and use pretty muxh everything I generate until around 2pm most days. After that I have perhaps 2kW spare for an hour or so and then it drops off as the sun gets lower. 

Most household PV installations don't have as much battery capacity, so their load and production don't happen at the same time (which means you will export and import much more). In my case, for instance, I can only use about 30% of what I produce.

COCT seem to differentiate between business and domestic premises as regards feedback tariffs. They tweet quite a lot about this, some of it's party propaganda, but there's some useful detail in there too.

They are also working on a scheme whereby "aggregators" (who have to tender to the City), will recruit "power heroes" who will, on request, disable certain circuits in their house. The City hopes that this will reduce their total load by enough that they can renegotiate load shedding schedules with Eskom. Aggregators will be paid by the city, and they will pay the power heroes at a rate contracted between the aggregator and the power heroes that each aggregator recruits.

This is not finalised yet. Amounts are still to be stipulated, and they need to come up with a way of monitoring the situation to make sure that the heroes really have turned off the requested circuits.

In short, they are not just asking you to turn of your geyser, they are going to put money in your pocket for doing so. 

@Bobster.I hope by "City" you include all cities in SA. Fine if this is CT, but wouldn't it work better if the rest of SA is also included.

@Speedster & @P1000, Yes, I agree, self consumption should be the first goal, and that has lead to increased home loads during daytime. I'm quite used to running the oven from 1pm for our evening meal, doing the washing/dishwashing machine etc. long before the sun sets.

I still think there is significant headroom to be exported. 2kW is just a number i think is achievable by installations that can legally feed back. (even getting this done does mean extra cost/effort). Those with enough PV will find it easier to achieve. PV is probably the least expensive portion of an installation, although one does need to factor in additional costs for mounting infrastructure, extra cabling & PV combiners/isolators/fuses/protection etc. 

 

So it is doable for some homeowners, more so if they are incentivised. We live in hope....Power Hero's...here we come....

38 minutes ago, Sidewinder said:

@Bobster.I hope by "City" you include all cities in SA. Fine if this is CT, but wouldn't it work better if the rest of SA is also included

Yes. I was referring just to proposals by the COCT. COCT can't act for any other city, though other cities could also decide to try some novel ideas.