January 2, 20242 yr We want to register and sell electricity back into the grid in Tshwane. Some background to our system: 8kw Sunsynk inverter 2 x 5 kw batteries 12 x 550 solar panels Prepaid electricity meter As we use gas geysers and stove - we use very little of our solar energy and because of this i am sure we can sell into the grid. We can also add more panels if the process works well so that the entire system starts paying for itself. Key questions for this forum: Does anyone on this forum know how to go through the application process in Tshwane - from registration to being operational. How to configure the entire system - inverter, etc.. How does one would get feedback from Tshwane to track what is being sold back? Does one need a specific prepaid meter to make this possible?
January 2, 20242 yr 1 minute ago, vanwyk.za said: We want to register and sell electricity back into the grid in Tshwane. Some background to our system: 8kw Sunsynk inverter 2 x 5 kw batteries 12 x 550 solar panels Prepaid electricity meter As we use gas geysers and stove - we use very little of our solar energy and because of this i am sure we can sell into the grid. We can also add more panels if the process works well so that the entire system starts paying for itself. Key questions for this forum: Does anyone on this forum know how to go through the application process in Tshwane - from registration to being operational. How to configure the entire system - inverter, etc.. How does one would get feedback from Tshwane to track what is being sold back? Does one need a specific prepaid meter to make this possible? Currently in SA it is not really worth the effort to do feedback. This may change in future if the processes, regulations and pricing become more favorable. 🤞
January 2, 20242 yr 34 minutes ago, vanwyk.za said: Does anyone on this forum know how to go through the application process in Tshwane - from registration to being operational. You could always just ask them. Probably they will want drawings and a sign off from a suitably qualified person. There are companies that will carry out this process on your behalf. 34 minutes ago, vanwyk.za said: How to configure the entire system - inverter, etc.. Can't help here. Did you do your own install? If you didn't, then ask the installer for assistance. Or ask on this forum, your inverter is one of the most commonly used in SA 34 minutes ago, vanwyk.za said: How does one would get feedback from Tshwane to track what is being sold back? A bidirectional meter would be required, and the billing would reflect what you consumed and what you fed back. You won't get paid as much for your feed in as you do for grid electricity. Some municipalities require that you be a net consumer - IE you may not sell back more than you buy. I don't know if Tshwane is one such. 34 minutes ago, vanwyk.za said: Does one need a specific prepaid meter to make this possible? See my answer to the previous question. They are going to have to properly track your purchases (when you take from the grid) and your feeding back in, then calculate who owes who how much. So I don't think pre-paid and reselling are going to go together. I currently have pre-paid in COJ, but I am not interested in selling back. There is a big question mark against these schemes in SA. Even in Cape Town nobody seems to end up with the municipality paying them, and they are paying over the NERSA rate for electricity that is fed back in. Depending on the tariff your are on right now, you can probably reduce your bill, but is it going to be worth the total cost? I would do some investigation first. From my perspective in COJ. If I wanted to start selling back to City Power 1) I have to go on to the reseller's tariff, with about R800 a month in fixed fees before they look at the movement on your meter 2) The net consumer requirement is in place, so I can't resell (get paid) for more units than I consume. 3) The price I pay them for a unit of electricity is in rands and cents. The price they pay me is cents. So even if I sell back exactly as much as I use, I still owe them money 4) A bidirectional meter must be installed. Last I heard this is at my expense, and it is in the thousands of rands. This is the killer. So do your homework and do some calculations. I will add that I expect Eskom and municipalities to get increasingly aggressive regarding registration of PV. So I am getting my system registered. First prize for me would be to have a registered system - set for zero export - and retain my prepaid meter, but not all muncipalities allow that combination.
January 2, 20242 yr 57 minutes ago, vanwyk.za said: We want to register and sell electricity back into the grid in Tshwane. Some background to our system: 8kw Sunsynk inverter 2 x 5 kw batteries 12 x 550 solar panels Prepaid electricity meter As we use gas geysers and stove - we use very little of our solar energy and because of this i am sure we can sell into the grid. We can also add more panels if the process works well so that the entire system starts paying for itself. Key questions for this forum: Does anyone on this forum know how to go through the application process in Tshwane - from registration to being operational. How to configure the entire system - inverter, etc.. How does one would get feedback from Tshwane to track what is being sold back? Does one need a specific prepaid meter to make this possible? Let's add a bit of fat to this. Say you have 16 kWh a day to sell back @12c a unit as the last price I saw. This gives you less than R60pm. You cannot use the same prepaid meter and a bi-directional could cost R9000. Now I don't know if there are any admin fees. Based on the above and current income from your feed in takes about 12 yrs to break even. A lot better ways to spend the money. 🤔🤔🤔
January 2, 20242 yr Author 14 minutes ago, Scorp007 said: Let's add a bit of fat to this. Say you have 16 kWh a day to sell back @12c a unit as the last price I saw. This gives you less than R60pm. You cannot use the same prepaid meter and a bi-directional could cost R9000. Now I don't know if there are any admin fees. Based on the above and current income from your feed in takes about 12 yrs to break even. A lot better ways to spend the money. 🤔🤔🤔 Yip...definitely have better ways to invest my money. The cost of the meter is a 'killer'. Just for interest...do you have any idea what brand is the bi-directional meter supported by the City Council?
January 2, 20242 yr 7 hours ago, Scorp007 said: Let's add a bit of fat to this. Say you have 16 kWh a day to sell back @12c a unit as the last price I saw. This gives you less than R60pm. You cannot use the same prepaid meter and a bi-directional could cost R9000. Now I don't know if there are any admin fees. I think you'll do better than 12c. But you're not going to get rich. In COJ the buying price (what you pay them) starts at 2.77. They will buy back from you at 85.5c. So less than a third of what you pay them. If you're already on the post-paid City Power tariff you'll be paying the same admin fees, so you can reduce your bill some, but you'll still be paying. This assumes you don't pay for a new meter, and excludes any registration fees. Edited January 2, 20242 yr by Bobster.
January 2, 20242 yr 40 minutes ago, Bobster. said: I think you'll do better than 12c. But you're not going to get rich. If you know the right people perhaps. The extract of official document from Tshwane is below. Edited January 2, 20242 yr by Scorp007
January 2, 20242 yr @vanwyk.za I think the make will change as and when contracts are awarded. For this reason makes are normally not disclosed. The last prepaids I have seen installed are Conlog.
January 2, 20242 yr 5 minutes ago, Scorp007 said: Eish! The figures I gave are for City Power and as I said, you won't get rich on that. 12c is ridiculous.
January 2, 20242 yr 1 minute ago, Bobster. said: Eish! The figures I gave are for City Power and as I said, you won't get rich on that. 12c is ridiculous. The OP mentioned in the subject - Tshwane. Bear in mind we don't have a fixed fee for post paid 😀😀. The different price tiers are also different to CoJ.
January 3, 20242 yr 9 hours ago, Scorp007 said: The OP mentioned in the subject - Tshwane. Bear in mind we don't have a fixed fee for post paid 😀😀. The different price tiers are also different to CoJ. We don't have a fixed fee in COJ either. 2.77 is the first tier. COJs offer is only attractive if they don't charge for the meter and you're already on post paid. If one is on prepaid then you end up paying for the pleasure of helping them out. But Tshwane! There has to be a better way. I've said before, and I mean it, that I will give my surplus production away as long as it costs me zero to do so.
January 3, 20242 yr 1 hour ago, Bobster. said: We don't have a fixed fee in COJ either. 2.77 is the first tier. Ours is 1c more but the tier is only for the 1st 100 units. I was under the impression your post paid carries a cost of about R800 that's why customers migrate to prepaid.
January 3, 20242 yr 20 minutes ago, Scorp007 said: I was under the impression your post paid carries a cost of about R800 that's why customers migrate to prepaid. It may be more than R800. I've been on prepaid for years, and I migrated for exactly that reason. On prepaid we pay more per unit, but the savings on fees more than offsets the increased unit cost. I don't know why more people don't do it. Thinking about it, that's your DSTV paid for.
January 3, 20242 yr 1 minute ago, Bobster. said: It may be more than R800. I've been on prepaid for years, and I migrated for exactly that reason. On prepaid we pay more per unit, but the savings on fees more than offsets the increased unit cost. I don't know why more people don't do it. Thinking about it, that's your DSTV paid for. Luckily for me I am still on post paid and it suits me fine. Our meters in the kiosk are now read about 9 times per year. No estimates as if they don't read they just use my on line submitted readings.
January 3, 20242 yr 2 hours ago, Bobster. said: COJs offer is only attractive if they don't charge for the meter and you're already on post paid. If one is on prepaid then you end up paying for the pleasure of helping them out. Because I was born in England, I tend to look there when looking for comparisons. In the UK the rule is that you can sell your surplus power, but only to the utilty that you buy from them. The legislation says that they have to pay you a unit price greater than zero.
January 3, 20242 yr 1 minute ago, Bobster. said: Because I was born in England, I tend to look there when looking for comparisons. In the UK the rule is that you can sell your surplus power, but only to the utilty that you buy from them. The legislation says that they have to pay you a unit price greater than zero. So 12c is then a good price 🤔🤔🤔
January 3, 20242 yr Just now, Scorp007 said: Luckily for me I am still on post paid and it suits me fine. Our meters in the kiosk are now read about 9 times per year. No estimates as if they don't read they just use my on line submitted readings. We have that in COJ too. We can also send in our own water meter readings. You even get an SMS each month telling you that the submission window is open.
January 3, 20242 yr 5 minutes ago, Scorp007 said: Luckily for me I am still on post paid and it suits me fine. Our meters in the kiosk are now read about 9 times per year. No estimates as if they don't read they just use my on line submitted readings. Johannesburg is notorious for very high fixed fees on electricity accounts. Other municipalities charge them, but not at COJ levels.
January 3, 20242 yr 1 hour ago, Scorp007 said: So 12c is then a good price 🤔🤔🤔 Or in the UK they are letting the invisible hand of the market move around. Their market is much less regulated than ours, and there are multiple providers with different offerings in most areas. So there's an opening for providers to compete on buy-back tariffs.
January 3, 20242 yr 7 hours ago, Bobster. said: Johannesburg is notorious for very high fixed fees on electricity accounts. Other municipalities charge them, but not at COJ levels. Indeed - a fellow forum'ite has done the maths. It's not pretty. Selling-back/feed-in might lessen the pain, but even at the R0.85 rate CoJ apparently offers, it makes more sense (usually) to swap over to Prepaid.
January 3, 20242 yr 1 hour ago, JayMardern said: Indeed - a fellow forum'ite has done the maths. It's not pretty. Selling-back/feed-in might lessen the pain, but even at the R0.85 rate CoJ apparently offers, it makes more sense (usually) to swap over to Prepaid. Thanks for posting this link from @system32 I could remember at the time seeing that CoJ tier 1 was indeed cheaper than Tshwane. I just confirmed it after the updates were done to show the fixed fees better. I remember I placed some comparison between the 2 metros but don't seem to find it now. It would be great if one could search for posts of a specific user.
January 3, 20242 yr 44 minutes ago, Scorp007 said: Thanks for posting this link from @system32 I could remember at the time seeing that CoJ tier 1 was indeed cheaper than Tshwane. I just confirmed it after the updates were done to show the fixed fees better. I remember I placed some comparison between the 2 metros but don't seem to find it now. It would be great if one could search for posts of a specific user. Might be this? https://powerforum.co.za/topic/15183-city-of-joburg-switching-to-prepaid/?do=findComment&comment=160340
May 27, 20242 yr On 2024/01/02 at 11:33 AM, vanwyk.za said: We want to register and sell electricity back into the grid in Tshwane. Some background to our system: 8kw Sunsynk inverter 2 x 5 kw batteries 12 x 550 solar panels Prepaid electricity meter As we use gas geysers and stove - we use very little of our solar energy and because of this i am sure we can sell into the grid. We can also add more panels if the process works well so that the entire system starts paying for itself. Key questions for this forum: Does anyone on this forum know how to go through the application process in Tshwane - from registration to being operational. How to configure the entire system - inverter, etc.. How does one would get feedback from Tshwane to track what is being sold back? Does one need a specific prepaid meter to make this possible? @vanwyk.za have you been able to source more detail on the process to get approval for a Tshwane bi-directional electricity meter? I want to apply noting that they now have new meters costing R2500 or R3500.
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.