Eskom has a net-billing tariff plan — with some heavy limits

Hanno Labuschagne

Hanno Labuschagne

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Eskom has a net-billing tariff plan — with some heavy limits

A new tariff plan with electricity net-billing introduced by Eskom in the past year provides little incentive for households to feed power back into the grid but offers potential cost savings when charging batteries outside peak hours.

The Homeflex tariff was one of several changes that Eskom proposed for electricity tariffs about a year and a half ago.
 
Does eskom itself even allow grid tied systems?
 
mpdjhb said:
Another own goal - just pay people a decent amount for exporting to the grid and drop all the other nonsense.
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So the TOU thing makes all the sense in the world in all honesty... it should have been implemented more than a decade ago.

But this limiting usage of credit to the TOU bracket you generated it in is just fscking retarded in the extreme as a starting point... also having a peak price at around R7 a kwh is also fscking retarded. at that point its very like cheaper for me to run a diesel generator for power than it is to draw off the grid.
 
Couldn't even read halfway through this convoluted f**ing mess of an idea.
My degree didn't sufficiently prepare me to navigate and benefit from this model.
Maybe that's the whole point.
/ignore and pay more.

"Eskom argued this was necessary because those with grid-tied solar and batteries were effectively paying subsidised tariffs by those without their own power."

What an utter load of horsesh*t.
 
What they do in the UK, hence where sunsynk kinda started as people would charge in offpeak and sell in peak
 
The_MAC said:
Imagine the billing issues/errors associated with such a spaghetti model..
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Absolutely, and the billing errors will always be in Eskoms favour... it will magically take ALL your usage at Peak time, and only credit you for Off-Peak time and pay then argue.
 
SeaSickMama said:
What they do in the UK, hence where sunsynk kinda started as people would charge in offpeak and sell in peak
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And people with EVs can charge them in offpeak and sell spare juice in peak. Lots of grid-tied batteries installed everywhere
 
PsyWulf said:
And people with EVs can charge them in offpeak and sell spare juice in peak. Lots of grid-tied batteries installed everywhere
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Similar here. I'd posit higher density of grid tied batteries.

In SA, *everyone* goes for battery + inverter. Solar is an addition in a lot of cases.

In UK, I don't think thats anywhere near the same.
 
SeaSickMama said:
What they do in the UK, hence where sunsynk kinda started as people would charge in offpeak and sell in peak
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A deye/sunsynk inverter in the UK with a service like Octopus Energy is a match made in heaven.
Can even get paid at certain times for using grid energy if the demand is too low and prices go into negative.

Trying to convince my manager in the UK to install a battery/inverter system 'cause you can benefit and save money even if you don't have solar.... most people there have no idea how many great options they have.

South Africans are way ahead in that regard but we keep getting arrows in the knee by the useless f**ing troglodytes running the show.
 
I love this year, it is what 1st world countries are already doing
Welcome to the 21st century ESKOM

HomeFlex-TOU-periods.jpg
 
LCBXX said:
What else is this, other than greed?
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Nah, this is more like a "look we're doing something good" but in reality its a load of horseshyte.

I can almost see the spec doc for this :

"Make a TOU and net billing system that can be sold as something good, but absolutely financially fscks the end user"
 
RaptorSA said:
"Eskom argued this was necessary because those with grid-tied solar and batteries were effectively paying subsidised tariffs by those without their own power."

What an utter load of horsesh*t.
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Playing devils advocate, it kind of makes sense. If there are 100 people and everyone was paying R2k per month to Eskom then they made R200k per month. Lets say R50k of this was for grid maintenance and R150k was for production (so Eskom makes no profit)

Now half of the users go and get solar and pay Eskom R0 per month instead of the R2000 they were paying before. So Eskom revenue is now 50 x 0 + 50 x 2000 = R100k. The grid maintenance is still R50k so they have only R50k to spend on production whereas they had R150k before. Usage has halved so they need R75k to have enough for supply. They need to get the extra R25k from somewhere. So they could either increase the remaining users bills by 25% to get the R25k needed or make the grid tied solar users pay for the grid cost.
 
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Forum Reader said:
Playing devils advocate, it kind of makes sense. If there are 100 people and everyone was paying R2k per month to Eskom then they made R200k per month. Lets say R50k of this was for grid maintenance and R150k was for production (so Eskom makes no profit)

Now half of the users go and get solar and pay Eskom R0 per month instead of the R2000 they were paying before. So Eskom revenue is now 50 x 0 + 50 x 2000 = R100k. The grid maintenance is still R50k so they have only R50k to spend on production whereas they had R150k before. Usage has halved so they need R75k to have enough for supply. They need to get the extra R25k from somewhere. So they could either increase the remaining users bills by 50% to get the R25k needed or make the grid tied solar users pay for the grid cost.
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The problem with any of the Eskom costs is that they are inflated by tender fraud, corruption, etc. We're already paying for coal syndicates, non-paying customers/municipalities, PetroSA cadres, etc. in the existing tariffs.

If a grid connection fee was reasonable - say R200 per month - it wouldn't be an issue. However if the grid connection fee is going to be R1000+ per month like Eskom proposed, then I'd rather just pay R35K for another 5kWh battery (3 years to pay off) and tell them to remove me from the grid.
They can figure out how to fund corruption some other way (like the tax payer bailouts).
 
What they talking about 'peak hours'.... we're literally perma-peak for years now, every hour is peak hour, there is not enough supply thus load shedding, we burn our 'peakers' just to get through a sunday afternoon ffs :ROFL:
 
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