Significant price cut for Durban residents wanting to sell electricity back to the grid

Daniel Puchert

Daniel Puchert

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Good news for solar users in Durban

The eThekwini Municipality's electricity tariff schedule for the 2024/25 financial year has revealed a significant Ancillary Network Charge price cut for those wanting to sell power back to the grid.

The Ancillary Network Charge is billed monthly based on the installed inverter capacity. The new schedule shows that the fee has been slashed from R126.86 per kVA to R62.17 per kVA.
 
R500 per month for 8kW Sunsynk. Nah, they can piss off. I'll keep my old english company spinny disk meter that costs nothing thanks.
 
I'm vaguely intrigued as to why there is this sliding scale "Ancillary Network Charge", its not like my having a 4kVA inverter means I have a different level of municipal infrastructure to my neighbour who may have a 12kVA inverter.
 
ToxicBunny said:
I'm vaguely intrigued as to why there is this sliding scale "Ancillary Network Charge", its not like my having a 4kVA inverter means I have a different level of municipal infrastructure to my neighbour who may have a 12kVA inverter.
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Yeah, I still have a 100A breaker on my DB board.
 
wingnut771 said:
R500 per month for 8kW Sunsynk
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It all depends on how much credit you get per kWh which I assume is probably very little. At least at this price it could make sense for some folks, instead of just being totally unfeasible for everyone.
 
Mega Watt hours of cheap excess home solar pv going to waste because metros are too incompetent to put in fair rules for grid feed in.

NERSA should force them to do what's best for the country.
 
Still R62.17 too much. It's like they intentionally want to sabotage owners wanting to do something about the electricity crisis.

system32 said:
Mega Watt hours of cheap excess home solar pv going to waste because metros are too incompetent to put in fair rules for grid feed in.

NERSA should force them to do what's best for the country.
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It should be central government. All those Eskom debts being written off should come with a condition that municipalities buy power from owners under fair terms.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
It all depends on how much credit you get per kWh which I assume is probably very little. At least at this price it could make sense for some folks, instead of just being totally unfeasible for everyone.
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You can not get cash back. It's a pointless exercise once you reach zero.
 
wingnut771 said:
You can not get cash back. It's a pointless exercise once you reach zero.
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Yep I know that. That's why it probably only makes sense for certain people, e.g. if you don't use much power during the day (and don't have storage for it) but use a lot in the evening.

Do you know if credits only count towards the current billing period or does it roll over to the next?
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Yep I know that. That's why it probably only makes sense for certain people, e.g. if you don't use much power during the day (and don't have storage for it) but use a lot in the evening.

Do you know if credits only count towards the current billing period or does it roll over to the next?
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No idea and don't care. We can just do nothing, Durban has spinning disk meters so we can just use the grid as a battery. Just don't let the meter go negative.
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Yep I know that. That's why it probably only makes sense for certain people, e.g. if you don't use much power during the day (and don't have storage for it) but use a lot in the evening.

Do you know if credits only count towards the current billing period or does it roll over to the next?
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As I understand it it's a credit on the account so will roll for a while.

But I'd assume that most guys who would feedback are going to have at least a 5kva sized inverter at least which is a 300 a month fee so you'd need to feedback around 200kwh of power before breaking even on the fee alone. It makes no damn sense at all and is likely a fee grab by a bankrupt municipality.
 
Swa said:
Still R62.17 too much. It's like they intentionally want to sabotage owners wanting to do something about the electricity crisis.
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“Modelling exercises indicate that the municipality could lose up to R1bn per annum should customers generate their own electricity,”
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Although to be honest this is not an entirely unreasonable take:
those using the hybrid of renewable energy and the municipality’s power could expect to pay more because the municipality was reserving energy for when they needed it
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