Nersa wants to charge solar panel users up to 1,000% more for power than big mines

[Mystic Twilight]

By and large Eskom aren't actually wrong really.

Many people have Solar for during the day, and minimal battery backup, so when that battery is depleted in the evening their usage spikes to "full" load onto the grid... its incredibly difficult to plan around those events, especially since they will be staggered over an evening.

A possible solution is eskom implementing their own grid sized energy storage as an energy demand buffer to provide time to ramp up production to meet demand where needed. To offset energy production during the day to build the buffer, have residential/commercial solar feed back into the storage.

 

[Major Boredom]

By and large Eskom aren't actually wrong really.

Many people have Solar for during the day, and minimal battery backup, so when that battery is depleted in the evening their usage spikes to "full" load onto the grid... its incredibly difficult to plan around those events, especially since they will be staggered over an evening.

Don't completely agree, but I may just be skewed in people I know with solar.
Most of the installations I have seen have enough capacity to run for 4 or 5 hours, which would then take it past the peak.
Definately something I will ask the installer I make use of to see what he see's

 

[ToxicBunny]

Don't completely agree, but I may just be skewed in people I know with solar.
Most of the installations I have seen have enough capacity to run for 4 or 5 hours, which would then take it past the peak.
Definately something I will ask the installer I make use of to see what he see's

Peak isn't necessarily the only time we care though... and yes most people have enough capacity for 4-5 hours.

But is that capacity based on being able to fully charge the batteries on a subpar solar generation day and still cater for normal daily usage, have the heavy draw items like geysers been shift to late at night to draw from the grid, the permutations of how it all plays out are immense.

 

[shinji]

When you do buy units, they add in the daily fee. So when the time come to use that backup, they will hit you hard on the daily access fee.

Aaaah... forget about that nonsense...
Where I stay now, the municipality doesn't send out water bills, they simply load the "arrears" onto your meter.

 

[Major Boredom]

Peak isn't necessarily the only time we care though... and yes most people have enough capacity for 4-5 hours.

But is that capacity based on being able to fully charge the batteries on a subpar solar generation day and still cater for normal daily usage, have the heavy draw items like geysers been shift to late at night to draw from the grid, the permutations of how it all plays out are immense.

Solar panels are the cheap component in the solution imo.
It is getting to a point where I now not only want to just help myself for load shedding etc, but actually limit what I have to pay the goverment in any way I legally can in taxes/rates/water/lights. It not like I actually get much for all that I have paid them in the past.

IMO going solar you need to have a wider holistic view on how to move the big power items off such as geysers/stoves/ovens etc. In that way you can limit the size of the solar solution required.

In certain parts of benoni there was havoc with water when there was the frequent load shedding. Towers could'nt fill and when power came on there was'nt enough time to fill the tower before load shedding started again so some areas had VERY spotty water supply for that period.
End result is a lot of people put in water tanks and filtering connected to boreholes. End result was even less income for the municipality.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Solar panels are the cheap component in the solution imo.
It is getting to a point where I now not only want to just help myself for load shedding etc, but actually limit what I have to pay the goverment in any way I legally can in taxes/rates/water/lights. It not like I actually get much for all that I have paid them in the past.

IMO going solar you need to have a wider holistic view on how to move the big power items off such as geysers/stoves/ovens etc. In that way you can limit the size of the solar solution required

I 100% agree with you.

I'm just saying that Eskom are not exactly wrong in their statement.

 

[s0lar]

How would this be enforced?

 

[Major Boredom]

I 100% agree with you.

I'm just saying that Eskom are not exactly wrong in their statement.

Yes and no. There will be extra "use" by solar people at night. No arguments there
But the argument that they have to ramp up faster for the peak ( Because of solar users ) in my eye's is incorrect

By 6pm I am still fairly on parity with solar to my afternoon load in summer. I do have an East/West system so my solar window is wider than the traditional north facing system.

If most people have 4 to 5 hours of storage ( and a 100ah to 200ah storage is a prereq for a lot of inverter systems ), they will only start coming onto the grid from 9pm+.
This is way after the start of the peak

 

[ToxicBunny]

Yes and no. There will be extra "use" by solar people at night. No arguments there
But the argument that they have to ramp up faster for the peak ( Because of solar users ) in my eye's is incorrect

By 6pm I am still fairly on parity with solar to my afternoon load in summer. I do have an East/West system so my solar window is wider than the traditional north facing system.

If most people have 4 to 5 hours of storage ( and a 100ah to 200ah storage is a prereq for a lot of inverter systems ), they will only start coming onto the grid from 9pm+.
This is way after the start of the peak

When Eskom are running OCGT's very regularly to meet usage, I think focusing on Peak is a problem.. we are running "peaking" plants even during normal times to meet the required demand at times, and that is a where the issue arises if the "model" determines that x OCGTs are spun down at 10 because the predicted load is Y, but the model can't cater for the sudden spike(s) when homes who have run out of storage suddenly ramp onto the grid.

One of the ways that Eskom COULD in theory mitigate this issue with with TOD billing or Peak/OffPeak billing, then they would very quickly see demand side patterns change from the solar users into a way more predictable pattern, at the moment there is not benefit to any of the solar users having a predictable usage pattern purely because you are billed the same amount, no matter what time of day you hit the grid.

 

[Major Boredom]

When Eskom are running OCGT's very regularly to meet usage, I think focusing on Peak is a problem.. we are running "peaking" plants even during normal times to meet the required demand at times, and that is a where the issue arises if the "model" determines that x OCGTs are spun down at 10 because the predicted load is Y, but the model can't cater for the sudden spike(s) when homes who have run out of storage suddenly ramp onto the grid.

One of the ways that Eskom COULD in theory mitigate this issue with with TOD billing or Peak/OffPeak billing, then they would very quickly see demand side patterns change from the solar users into a way more predictable pattern, at the moment there is not benefit to any of the solar users having a predictable usage pattern purely because you are billed the same amount, no matter what time of day you hit the grid.

Yup. But then they need to be more open with their reasons.

If they are running OCGT's during the day to meet usage requirements that is not caused by solar users.
That is due to them not building enough capacity to run normally.

Even when I am cloudy I still normally ( on the most part ) generate enough to cater for my needs. The batteries just dont charge as quickly. It takes solid rain and cloud for me to produce nothing.

I agree the way to go is TOD onpeak/offpeak billing. If that was in place I for one would change my settings to take it into account.
Again, this is short sightedness of Eskom and the municipalities.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Yup. But then they need to be more open with their reasons.

If they are running OCGT's during the day to meet usage requirements that is not caused by solar users.
That is due to them not building enough capacity to run normally.

Even when I am cloudy I still normally ( on the most part ) generate enough to cater for my needs. The batteries just dont charge as quickly. It takes solid rain and cloud for me to produce nothing.

I agree the way to go is TOD onpeak/offpeak billing. If that was in place I for one would change my settings to take it into account.
Again, this is short sightedness of Eskom and the municipalities.

They are actually relatively open about their reasons though, we all know they are running OCGTs way harder than they should be run in an ideal situation.

And no disagreement that its short sightedness on the part of Eskom/Nersa/Munis... but it doesn't ultimately change the fact that Eskoms claim about being hard pressed at times to cater for the ramp up is not wrong, but it is caused by a bunch of factors that should never have existed in the first place.

 

[Gaz{M}]

Actually, Eskom's argument is BS, because they already charge Municipatlities a "time of use" tarrif. So during the night, Municipalites pay, say 50c a kwh, but during evening peak, it is R2.50 per kwh.

Municipalites just blend their usage and come up with an average tarrif, which is what we all pay.

 

[nanonyous]

Imagine this in a homestead context for a moment.

You produce your own vegetables, poultry meat, maybe some fruit and fish at home.

Obviously, all these things (typically) have seasonal growth patterns. Now imagine you visit a grocer and grab a whole chicken from the fridge, or a bag of oranges out of season.

Now, these things already have higher than in season prices because they are being produced out of season or brought in by the larger-than-your-homestead farms or distribution companies.

The store owner however is told to charge you 10x even that rate, because it's known you produce these things yourself at home in season.

It doesn't take a genius to see this is absurd reasoning on NERSA's past....

 

[LCBXX]

So much shock and anger at the ANC in this tread.

You thought you can off-grid you house and give the ANC and ESKOM the middle finger, and they'd just be OK with it?

 

[David Lipschitz]

One should note that this is based on an invalid assumption that battery based users need to use electricity from peaking power plants in the early morning or evening. This is patently untrue and in fact, one can charge their batteries at mid day or mid night when grid electricity is cheap. A battery based user can also feed the grid at any time of the day or night with the right type of incentives, eg if Eskom paid the prosumer the same rates they pay for diesel based peaking power.

 

[ThinkCentre]

What if you are pushing back electricity to the grid?
People of Cape Town can.

 

[AlphaJohn]

A possible solution is eskom implementing their own grid sized energy storage as an energy demand buffer to provide time to ramp up production to meet demand where needed. To offset energy production during the day to build the buffer, have residential/commercial solar feed back into the storage.

Its called a Dam, loads of countries use this system.

 

[Ockie]

Did not read the actual article. I just cant bare it ... but looking at the headline. WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????? I actually would love for all the big international news papers to pick up on this and put it on their first page so that the entire world can see wat a absolute JOKE this fcking country has become. Problem is, the rest of the world have become fcked up in their own right. They will either think it is OK what is being proposed and completely reasonable or they have their own problems to deal with and cant be bothered with little old RSA.

 

[Mystic Twilight]

Its called a Dam, loads of countries use this system.

Dams don't [near] instantly release energy like a battery. Sure it can start spinning a turbine fairly quickly, but there is still a lead up time for the water to be released and start flowing.

 

[Temujin]

Silly plebs thinking they can get away with not paying for stuff they don't use