Tax breaks for rooftop solar in South Africa come with a big catch

Harmonic said:
Similar situation for me. My accountant gave the preliminary go ahead. Chat with your accountant as well?

I'm tempted to wait a little bit until this all becomes very clear
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Are you registered as a business or just working from home? Also are you planning to install solar or already have it?
 
LandyMan said:
No no, only on the panels, not the full install
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Yes only the panels. I simplified it there, but if you are installing a system worth R150k-R200k you will probably have R40k-R60k worth of panels as well. Then you will get between R10k and R15k tax rebate on the panel cost. My point was just that while it will be nice to get this discount if wouldn't really make it more affordable for most people.
 
furpile said:
The problem with this 18 page debate raging here is that it doesn't really matter how many panels you put up if you cannot export excess solar to the grid. Once you cover your baseload and charge your batteries the rest are wasted. Adding more batteries is expensive. So you are just removing the consumption of your house from the grid.

This rebate could have been a free smart meter for every installation that qualifies (approved inverter, CoC etc) and then you could export all your excess solar. Thus you remove the consumption of your house from the grid and add additional generation to the grid. In this case you could also incentivize users with time of day tariffs to feed back (even from batteries) during the evening peak to reduce the load on the grid even further.
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Agreed 100% - that being said, we can go through the shoulda woulda coulda back and forth until we are blue in the face but it won't change anything.

How can we utilise the full incentive as best as possible? R60k worth of panels to get a 25% tax break is kak but at least it's something

R60k = 15panels @ R4k per panel (R4k panels = >500W panels)

Do we agree that most mid-class houses aim to create 2 strings of 6-8, eventually, to ensure their daytime usage is as low as possible?
 
If they give rebate on the inverter with panels as a requirement, I'll buy one with a couple panels to get to R60k and get the R15k rebate. Then sell the panels to someone else as I live in an apartment like many people in the country without the ability to add solar. Then I'll just hook up a few batteries and use Eskom to recharge.

So it makes sense why only the panels are rebated.
 
semaphore said:
Are you registered as a business or just working from home? Also are you planning to install solar or already have it?
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Sole proprietor considering solar. I work from home but the majority of the property operates as a guest house run by my SO. Property has rights to run as a guest house as well
 
Mista_Mobsta said:
Agreed 100% - that being said, we can go through the shoulda woulda coulda back and forth until we are blue in the face but it won't change anything.

How can we utilise the full incentive as best as possible? R60k worth of panels to get a 25% tax break is kak but at least it's something

R60k = 15panels @ R4k per panel (R4k panels = >500W panels)

Do we agree that most mid-class houses aim to create 2 strings of 6-8, eventually, to ensure their daytime usage is as low as possible?
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Yes that would probably be enough for the average house. And get the most out of the rebate. Like I said, getting R10k to R15k back is a nice bonus and might even make it worth getting a few extra panels to make sure you hit R60k so that you can get the full rebate. During winter the extra panels will be handy for sure, and the rebate gets you halfway to another battery. So if you are planning to install in the next financial year it is a nice bonus. But this will not have any significant impact on the number of installs done over the next year. Especially as parts are already in short supply.
 
furpile said:
Yes that would probably be enough for the average house. And get the most out of the rebate. Like I said, getting R10k to R15k back is a nice bonus and might even make it worth getting a few extra panels to make sure you hit R60k so that you can get the full rebate. During winter the extra panels will be handy for sure, and the rebate gets you halfway to another battery. So if you are planning to install in the next financial year it is a nice bonus. But this will not have any significant impact on the number of installs done over the next year. Especially as parts are already in short supply.
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I wish! Another battery would take me to 30kWh (and another R110k) which would require a lot more panels to fill especially in winter. So I'll likely just get another inverter (to make it 10kW) and 8 to 10 panels. Then I have to remove 2 palm trees that are shading the north facing roof. Lots of money to spend again. Eina!!
 
ghaye said:
I wish! Another battery would take me to 30kWh (and another R110k) which would require a lot more panels to fill especially in winter. So I'll likely just get another inverter (to make it 10kW) and 8 to 10 panels. Then I have to remove 2 palm trees that are shading the north facing roof. Lots of money to spend again. Eina!!
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Big battery problems :) is that a FreeomWon tower?
 
ghaye said:
I wish! Another battery would take me to 30kWh (and another R110k) which would require a lot more panels to fill especially in winter. So I'll likely just get another inverter (to make it 10kW) and 8 to 10 panels. Then I have to remove 2 palm trees that are shading the north facing roof. Lots of money to spend again. Eina!!
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Same here - although I have the bigger boi 20/16 FreedomWon Lite @ probably 150k'ish now (eina!).
My solution (since my inverter is maxed on panels - 18 x 540w) is just to add a generator @8-15k for crappy winter days (or substation blowups).
 
Pegasus said:
City of Cape Town are doing this. R1.05 per kilowatt

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Not really.

Do the math. Its really a nett loss if you look at the limitations.
 
itareanlnotani said:
Not really.

Do the math. Its really a nett loss if you look at the limitations.
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I didn't say it is not a loss.

If you don't sell your excess electricity you get zero for it.

Do the math.

Or do you think that people are selling Eskoms electricity to the municipality?
 
Pegasus said:
I didn't say it is not a loss.

If you don't sell your excess electricity you get zero for it.

Do the math.

Or do you think that people are selling Eskoms electricity to the municipality?
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For SSEG feedback - you need to cover circa R350 month in costs to break even

Say 350KW @ R1.

12kW / day fed back on top of house usage. Virtually impossible to do with the size limitations imposed. (below)

Screenshot 2023-02-23 at 14.32.17.png

You can reduce your bill (marginally), but it will difficult to "make a profit" as CoCT claims for residential users, especially with the capacity limits.
Business Users have a far better time of it though, which I have mentioned a few times.

CoCT's announcements are typically like this - mostly Greenwashing once you get into the detail...

For now, its not completely pointless, but there is no real tacit benefit to feeding back, especially as once you do so, you're stuck on their tariff structure, and I can assure you those will go up and up and up as they lose more money to solar pv...

My article here from 2022 still stands - https://goingsolar.co.za/2022/05/14/sseg-pricing-in-2022-has-cape-town-seen-the-light/
 
itareanlnotani said:
For SSEG feedback - you need to cover circa R350 month in costs to break even

Say 350KW @ R1.

12kW / day fed back on top of house usage. Virtually impossible to do with the size limitations imposed. (below)

View attachment 1481327

You can reduce your bill (marginally), but it will difficult to "make a profit" as CoCT claims for residential users, especially with the capacity limits.
Business Users have a far better time of it though, which I have mentioned a few times.

CoCT's announcements are typically like this - mostly Greenwashing once you get into the detail...

For now, its not completely pointless, but there is no real tacit benefit to feeding back, especially as once you do so, you're stuck on their tariff structure, and I can assure you those will go up and up and up as they lose more money to solar pv...

My article here from 2022 still stands - https://goingsolar.co.za/2022/05/14/sseg-pricing-in-2022-has-cape-town-seen-the-light/
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Wow. So you'll actually lose money if you can't export 12kWh a day, every day. What a deal. I hope you've still got those panels in your basket @Pegasus and haven't clicked 'checkout yet' :ROFL:
 
Spizz said:
Wow. So you'll actually lose money if you can't export 12kWh a day, every day. What a deal. I hope you've still got those panels in your basket @Pegasus and haven't clicked 'checkout yet' :ROFL:
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So assuming the R1 a kwh payment, and the R15k rebate...

You technically have to generate 6kwh over and above the 12kwh to break even, for your panels to effectively pay for themselves over a 20 year period (unless my maths is absolutely piss poor)
 
ToxicBunny said:
So assuming the R1 a kwh payment, and the R15k rebate...

You technically have to generate 6kwh over and above the 12kwh to break even, for your panels to effectively pay for themselves over a 20 year period (unless my maths is absolutely piss poor)
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It's almost like they don't want our electricity...
 
itareanlnotani said:
For SSEG feedback - you need to cover circa R350 month in costs to break even

Say 350KW @ R1.

12kW / day fed back on top of house usage. Virtually impossible to do with the size limitations imposed. (below)

View attachment 1481327

You can reduce your bill (marginally), but it will difficult to "make a profit" as CoCT claims for residential users, especially with the capacity limits.
Business Users have a far better time of it though, which I have mentioned a few times.

CoCT's announcements are typically like this - mostly Greenwashing once you get into the detail...

For now, its not completely pointless, but there is no real tacit benefit to feeding back, especially as once you do so, you're stuck on their tariff structure, and I can assure you those will go up and up and up as they lose more money to solar pv...

My article here from 2022 still stands - https://goingsolar.co.za/2022/05/14/sseg-pricing-in-2022-has-cape-town-seen-the-light/
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I agree with that. Thanks for the article.

I would expect to have my bill reduced by a couple of 100 a month.
 
Spizz said:
Wow. So you'll actually lose money if you can't export 12kWh a day, every day. What a deal. I hope you've still got those panels in your basket @Pegasus and haven't clicked 'checkout yet' :ROFL:
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How much can I export every day using my system? And what will the rates be in the next few years.
 
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