Using all the latest info I could find on the City of Capetown websites I find it almost impossible as a home user to be convinced to sell electricity to the city.

Below are the rough calculations based on available info.
This is also assuming you will be using ZERO of the units produced by the solar system and not using any units from the grid, i.e. this is purely for selling power back to the city grid.

My math may not be that great but I still do not see any real incentive for home users to sell power back to the city.

Unless you are a philanthropist that wants to be kind to the rest of SA this makes no sense at all.

Maybe I am missing something here, feel free to jump in comment on this.

Sources:

https://www.capetown.gov.za/Local and communities/meet-the-city/the-city-budget/City-wide-tariffs
https://resource.capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/Bylaws and policies/Tariff Policies.pdf
https://resource.capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/Financial documents/Ann6_2022-23_ElectricityGenerationandDistribution-Consumptive.pdf
https://resource.capetown.gov.za/documentcentre/Documents/Financial documents/Ann6_2022-23_EnergyGenerationandDistribution-Miscellaneous.pdf
 

Edited March 17, 20231 yr by WannabeSolarSparky
Added sources of info

Of course it is a waste of time. For a start you having to fund it not them and then they charge you prime and pay you pittance. They should credit you by the kwh. Feed in a kwh get a kwh deducted from your bill. Then they set the price and can change it at anytime. They must think you stupid

 

I'm generally suspicious of claims about how much money we can make or just save. There was somebody posting here recently about all the money he was getting back. I must see if I can find those posts. He, or his posts, might shed some light.

In any event, with all the load shedding, one would prioritise charging up one's batteries ahead of feeding back. That also reduces the amount you can sell back. 

Edited March 17, 20231 yr by Bobster.
finish sentence

Don't forget to add the cost of the new prepaid meter required to support feed-in.  Currently R12k.  They are working on reducing this cost to around R5k-R6k.

I also did the maths, and basically unless you have a full 5kW of _unused_ solar panel power to feed in, it's not worth it.  Your average 3.6kW or even most 5kW installs that are using most of their solar power - would take 6+ years just to recover the cost of the prepaid meter installation.

10 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

I'm generally suspicious of claims about how much money we can make or just save. There was somebody posting here recently about all the money he was getting back. I must see if I can find those posts. He, or his posts, might shed some light.

In any event, with all the load shedding, one would prioritise charging up one's batteries ahead of feeding back. That also reduces the amount you can 

The thread is here

The guy saying that he was doingt well also has multiple inverters and lots of panels. Which means his outlay was considerable.

The R10k+ for getting the required meter and engineering drawings required for the application (to my understanding) is what in my view is killing it

I have spare PV capacity in my system to feed back to the grid for most of the year. In summer probably around 15kWh a day, in winter less. But at the current rate the city is paying, it will take me 5 years or so to recover the initial capital required

Why would I do that???

I do remember, though, reading comments from the CoCT that they understand that the cost of the meter is very high and that they are looking for cheaper alternatives, so maybe there is hope for the future

1 hour ago, wolfandy said:

I do remember, though, reading comments from the CoCT that they understand that the cost of the meter is very high and that they are looking for cheaper alternatives, so maybe there is hope for the future

Lets just assume electricity, by some miracle, becomes reliable.
The cost of the meter can almost be absorbed over time. It's those fixed monthly costs (CURRENTLY R6861 per year) that's the deal breaker on the bit of research I did on small grid-tie systems.
Most households can not afford proper systems like many of us have, and now they cannot even get a small grid-tie system to reduce their monthly bills, all due to those ridiculous monthly fees.

1 hour ago, wolfandy said:

I have spare PV capacity in my system to feed back to the grid for most of the year.

Correct, me too. Most days my panels sit there idling away after 13:30 when all that power could well be going to good use somewhere on the grid.
If not for those crazy fees I could quite easily be helping the grid a bit
Lately i have been finding all sorts of excuses to keep my aircon running and boiling the kettle just to make the panels work a bit 🤣

2 hours ago, Bobster. said:

The thread is here

The guy saying that he was doingt well also has multiple inverters and lots of panels. Which means his outlay was considerable.

I have been following that thread too.

Not too much mention of the CoCT crazy monthly fixed fees there.
Unless you upgrade your supply which will allow you to put in a massive array then it just will never be feasible for a home user with the current fixed fee structures.

4 hours ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

I have been following that thread too.

Not too much mention of the CoCT crazy monthly fixed fees there.

They're in the calculations. They're low too by johannesburg standards. Here the per unit cost is lower, but the flat monthly fees are over R700 per month. 

Unless you're on prepaid. Then the unit cost goes up but the flat fees drop away. 

I was on prepaid before I went onto solar. If I go onto the resellers tariff, the flat fees come back 😞

4 hours ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

 

Unless you upgrade your supply which will allow you to put in a massive array then it just will never be feasible for a home user with the current fixed fee structures.

I can't see a way to make it work unless you have a lot of PV and an inverter to match. You'd have more PV than you need, which increases what you have to recover. 

That's for COCT. in COJ the net consumer requirement is still in place, IE you can only get reimbursed for less than you buy. I can't see how you'd even get into a neutral situation. It's going to be a net cost for a domestic user in COJ. 

10 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

I can't see a way to make it work unless you have a lot of PV and an inverter to match. You'd have more PV than you need, which increases what you have to recover.

Correct, for a normal home user the feed-in will most likely NEVER work as advertised by the politicians 🤪
I honestly do not think they will change these rules much as they rely too much on the revenues they generate from the sale and provision of electricity to PAYING customers, to subsidise a whole lot of other line items on their budgets.

They will however keep up with the crazy headlines trying to convince people to go the feed-in route.

The end result will be that all the clever people will simply do what most of us do and that is to go for a good self consumption solution.
i.e. all the good paying customers that they need will eventually go the self consumption route (I think this is part of how the Utility Death Spiral works?!)
I also suspect they will bring in all sorts of regulations to try claw back some of those lost revenues?

My system pays for itself nicely by off-setting my eskom units to almost zero per month.
I am down to under R25 per month on average now, quite happy to pay that 18% increase 🤣
I am also quite happy to stay on my pre-paid meter for now Not too sure how long this will be as eskom now also want to start charging fixed monthly fees for everything.

What would you say then to someone that has an existing system that goes to sleep before midday and has the potential to export up to 15 units/day?

I'm looking after such a system that was over paneled to mitigate winter / cloudy performance. 

10 minutes ago, Mako said:

What would you say then to someone that has an existing system that goes to sleep before midday

Offer the spare capacity to your neighbour, they'll appreciate it more 😉

 

24 minutes ago, Mako said:

What would you say then to someone that has an existing system that goes to sleep before midday and has the potential to export up to 15 units/day?

I'm looking after such a system that was over paneled to mitigate winter / cloudy performance. 

Simply put, Will that production after midday (15 units x R1.20 x31=R558) cover the fixed monthly fees of R571 and over a period of time the cost of the meter?
Using the 15 units per day if every single day is cloudless you would still end up paying out of pocket to sell that power to the city who would then sell that on and make a handsome profit from your equipment and efforts.
 

3 hours ago, Mako said:

What would you say then to someone that has an existing system that goes to sleep before midday and has the potential to export up to 15 units/day?

I'm looking after such a system that was over paneled to mitigate winter / cloudy performance. 

Get more battery for greater protection during overcast weather 

A bit off topic 🤪

Rare moment of no load shedding recorded.
My home continues to load shed anyway by design 🤣

11 hours ago, Bobster. said:

Get more battery for greater protection during overcast weather 

Or leave it as is. You're over paneled, which will be handy on low PV days.

The offer to buy back excess production always had strings attached and the municipalities & Eskom pulblished tariffs that itemised those strings. 

The problem has been "experts" and councillors and staff saying "OF COURSE you can sell back" without spelling out the Ts&Cs. They're right, you can sell back, but they don't tell you the whole truth. 

What we have to do is read the small print,as @WannabeSolarSparky has done. Or properly read our accounts. 

There was a rumour where I live about a "solar tax". There was no such thing. It was people who hadn't read their municipal accounts properly and had never noticed the flat fees they are charged each month irrespective of how much energy they consume. 

Edited March 19, 20231 yr by Bobster.
sppeling

Just for some clarity 🥰

This is ONLY about/for the average small home user in SA who is considering selling power to the grid.

My intent for this post is not to be about saving money/electricity but rather about the concept of making money from selling power back to the grid as proposed/suggested/promoted by "CLEVA SA POLITICIANS".

If you want to save money with solar then both grid-tie AND hybrid off-grid storage solutions WILL SAVE YOU MONEY

47 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

This is ONLY about/for the average small home user in SA who is considering selling power to the grid.

Agreed. The position is very different for businesses, who may write off the cost of a grid-tied solution in one year. Thereafter they make a big saving on their bill, and for them selling back is a no-brainer.

What makes a bit of difference in COCT is the temporary waiving of the net purchaser requirement and the extra incentive (which is from the City, not from Eskom). In Johannesburg that would male the deal ... less unattractive for me. 

I'm not sure it makes a crucial difference for homeowners, but I also have a little voice inside my head saying that since COCT are paying an extra 25c per kWh out of their own pockets, they must have done their sums. Probably those sums include indirect gains like having businesses running for more hours per day. 

The reality is that municipalities and Eskom should be doing all they can to encourage uptake of PV, because even if you don't sell back, it's a reduction in the load they have to service.*

BUT, of course, it's also a reduction in their income, and Eskom need income if they're to dig themselves out of this hole. So they're in trouble either way. Implied in what COCT are doing is that they're prepared to take a knock on electricity for the greater good (or they are going through the motions of saying "look, you can sell back" whilst knowing that you'd be silly to do so).
 

 

 

* And this leaves the poor who can't afford PV stuck with ever increasing tariffs. That said, I am pleased to see that Eskom's latest tariff increases soften the blow for poor folks with a 20A main breaker, and that COCT have budgeted to supply basic inverter/battery kits for indigent households.

Thought: What if you install a new system and can claim the 15K tax benefit. Does that change the picture?

33 minutes ago, Bobster. said:

Thought: What if you install a new system and can claim the 15K tax benefit. Does that change the picture?

On current prices you could buy up to 8kW of panels for the limit of R60K, to benefit from the R15K tax rebate at 25% of purchase price. But for grid-tie you may run into export limitations.

In the scenario above, on 4.6kW of panels, that tax benefit reduces to around R8500, but you'll only see the rebate a year later, so may have to adjust for inflation.

The upfront investment costs do reduce, so the rate of payback is increased for the time to June 2025, but not enough to pay the whole system off of course. Once the tariff sweetener falls away in 2025, same applies, you're making too little money even to cover the monthly charges.

But to be fair, one should remove the network access fees from the consideration, because you should be paying fixed costs just to be on the grid one way or another. This system would just make you lose less, you're still a net customer, if not a net consumer.

 

1 hour ago, Bobster. said:

Thought: What if you install a new system and can claim the 15K tax benefit. Does that change the picture?

I did think about doing that.
I have a perfectly good system currently and have plenty roof space to add about 12 more panels SO I thought let me do the math on a separate brand new grid-tie system to feed back to the grid.
That's where it all fell apart when I started seeing the fees.
Even with the rebate it and the small extra bit CoC gives it still does not make much sense to go to all that trouble.

These clever politicians and their advisors are going to need to get a lot more creative to encourage more widespread adoption.

I also think maybe the FACT that we do not have enough reliable utility (eskom) capacity, makes it difficult for them to come up with realistic incentives and or tariff structures to push more home users to solar.

9 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

I did think about doing that.
I have a perfectly good system currently and have plenty roof space to add about 12 more panels SO I thought let me do the math on a separate brand new grid-tie system to feed back to the grid.
That's where it all fell apart when I started seeing the fees.
Even with the rebate it and the small extra bit CoC gives it still does not make much sense to go to all that trouble.

These clever politicians and their advisors are going to need to get a lot more creative to encourage more widespread adoption.

I also think maybe the FACT that we do not have enough reliable utility (eskom) capacity, makes it difficult for them to come up with realistic incentives and or tariff structures to push more home users to solar.

I have no intention to export, first I don't have a grid tied inverter however, I have a question regarding the export and the money you get from the municipality. would you have to declare it to SARS as an extra income.  

2 minutes ago, Antonio de Sa said:

would you have to declare it to SARS as an extra income.  

I believe you would need to declare it as extra income.
Maybe some of the clever accounting people can chip in here and maybe comment on what sort of deductions can be made in this scenario

3 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

I believe you would need to declare it as extra income.
Maybe some of the clever accounting people can chip in here and maybe comment on what sort of deductions can be made in this scenario

There are so many things that people that export are not thinking about, in my view you are now actually selling a commodity, so you should actually be registered as a business, what about sales taxes. Man this could become a can of worms.