Solar panels and pushing back into the grid.

High end users are subsidising poorer users. They are also the ones that will be able to afford more advanced solar systems and

Eskom can’t afford high end users to go off the grid. The reason for this is quite obvious. The less electricity they sell, the less money they will have to upgrade and repair their ailing infrastructure.

Municipalities need electricity sales to provide the necessary services. They act as the middle-man by buying electricity in bulk and then selling it to residential, business and industrial customers.

This income is then used to perform necessary services. During the 2012-13 financial year electricity sales were 30% of total municipal income. This amounts to R77.2 bn of a total income of R258bn. Most municipalities are dependant on electricity sales.
 
If municipality earn so much from electricity sales you think they'd take better care of maintaining the infrastructure to ensure that goose don't die. Now they're just collecting the eggs and neglecting to feed the darn goose. Idiots. The more unreliable the supply coupled with ridiculous corruption fueled increases at Eskom the more people will look at alternatives. I'd happily go offgrid at cost with no hope of recovering the outlay if I had the money just to ensure reliable supply & not have to deal with their incompetence.
 
Talking of the chaos in municipal finances ... since July 2017 our bankrupt municipality has added a R305.74 (excl VAT) monthly "Ampere Levy" to our monthly bill. This means that the minimum charge even with zero electrical usage is R339.26 eVAT = R386.75 iVAT. It's simply a mechanism to boost municipal finances. On top of that come water and electricity usage charges, irrigation levy R162.60 eVAT, sewage R824.23, refuse removal R119.88, and property taxes of R2668. There is no prospect of this ever improving.

The point I'm trying to make is that one way or another it seems municipalities will extract the taxes they need to pay for their increasingly inefficient and ineffective services. I put it down to the African overhead.

Every month I relish not having to pay them for the full 1500-2000 kWh I normally consume.
 
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Faaiez said:
So how is this possible throughout the world?
There must be a way around it being unsafe?
Click to expand...

My cousin has a fully compliant system (though it is far from economical). The main obstacles are politics, and red-tape.

richjdavies said:
Thats why they only let you feedback with an 'anti-islanding' device - i.e. if there's no grid coming in, then it can't feed back.

There's a lot about this here:
https://www.greencape.co.za/content/small-scale-embedded-generation-sseg-resource-pack/
Lots of municipalities ALLOW you to feedback now, I'm not sure the economics stack up most of the time, but they let you sell them power at less than they buy it from Eskom :)
Click to expand...

Edit: That pretty much describes my cousin's system, part of a CoCT pilot project (now defunct).

The main distribution board (there are several others) looks like part of a nuclear power station!? It immediately stops feeding power back into the grid when it detects a mains power failure.

20171001_164554.jpg
 
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I would assume R400k solar system would allow you to have enough batteries for night use?

I'm playing with the idea off dollar for all lights and 2 plugs... current quote R56k for day and night consumption.
 
BadBoyGP said:
I would assume R400k solar system would allow you to have enough batteries for night use?

I'm playing with the idea off dollar for all lights and 2 plugs... current quote R56k for day and night consumption.
Click to expand...

Depends how much you use but for a normal 3,4 bedroom house should be more than enough for system and batteries.
 
Arthur said:
... and it depends on whether the system he spent R400k on could have been had for R150K from another supplier ...
Click to expand...

Assuming he does his shopping properly yes, 400k is a lot. Should get you at least 6kw+ array + 14kw/h li-ion bank. At least.
 
HunterNW said:
Unsafe - Ring feedback. Say they are working on an electrical line somewhere, their part of the electricity feed is isolated, but now you feed electricity back into the system - POOF - another fatal electrocution.
Click to expand...

These inverters have been in use in Europe for many years,all inverters have a safety mechanism that stops current going through when the grid fails.These equipment comes from 1st world countrys we are decades behind
 
Escom is under pressure to deliver electricity the country,they are coming up way short they are even paying some of the BIG users not to use electricity,that enables them to free up elec to service the community.So why if i generate electricity can i not give it to Escom at no charge,can you emagine if lots of people generate power and help Escom make its demands.Just a thought.
 
Ballito self storage said:
Escom is under pressure to deliver electricity the country,they are coming up way short they are even paying some of the BIG users not to use electricity,that enables them to free up elec to service the community.So why if i generate electricity can i not give it to Escom at no charge,can you emagine if lots of people generate power and help Escom make its demands.Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Eskom are no long struggling to meet the demand for electricity.

They aren't paying BIG users not to use anymore

You overspent without doing your research, stop trying to shift blame on this front.. regardless of how much of a mess this country actually is.
 
Ballito self storage said:
Escom is under pressure to deliver electricity the country,they are coming up way short they are even paying some of the BIG users not to use electricity,that enables them to free up elec to service the community.So why if i generate electricity can i not give it to Escom at no charge,can you emagine if lots of people generate power and help Escom make its demands.Just a thought.
Click to expand...

ToxicBunny already covered most of it. Eskom actually now have excess power after new capacity came online and the economy shrank, and are planning to shut down some of the older power stations again that they had woken up. You are years late for that party.
 
Gordon_R said:
Edit: That pretty much describes my cousin's system, part of a CoCT pilot project (now defunct).
View attachment 467135
Click to expand...

- Hi sorry to resurrect this old thread. But can I ask - that Actaris Prepaid meter... do you know what happens when electricity is fed back through it? Does it read it as usage, or as nothing or does it stop it?

Basically there is next to no info about the 'modes' of these Prepaid meters online - not mentioned in user manual etc. and it seems no standards. But I know someone with EXACTLY that same meter as shown in the picture, so thought I'd ask :)
 
richjdavies said:
- Hi sorry to resurrect this old thread. But can I ask - that Actaris Prepaid meter... do you know what happens when electricity is fed back through it? Does it read it as usage, or as nothing or does it stop it?

Basically there is next to no info about the 'modes' of these Prepaid meters online - not mentioned in user manual etc. and it seems no standards. But I know someone with EXACTLY that same meter as shown in the picture, so thought I'd ask :)
Click to expand...


Suggest check with Itron, as they bought Actaris.
They will have documentation on the meters. Would help if you have model numbers etc

Google search for something like
Actaris 4 quadrant meter residential filetype:pdf

or Actaris [your model number goes here] filetype:pdf will probably help.
 
supersunbird said:
ToxicBunny already covered most of it. Eskom actually now have excess power after new capacity came online and the economy shrank, and are planning to shut down some of the older power stations again that they had woken up. You are years late for that party.
Click to expand...
That looks a bit optimistic right now.
 
I went solar too, and have a smart meter which sees power feed back into the grid as CONSUMPTION and the sods from city power bill me for it (this after get a thank you letter from them for going green and giving me a feed in tariff of a whole 40c per kwh). I installed a solar log 1200 along with a bi-directional consumption meter and what this does usd prevent the panels from generating more power than I consume this nothing is fed back into the grid and I save money
 
zambussi said:
I went solar too, and have a smart meter which sees power feed back into the grid as CONSUMPTION and the sods from city power bill me for it (this after get a thank you letter from them for going green and giving me a feed in tariff of a whole 40c per kwh). I installed a solar log 1200 along with a bi-directional consumption meter and what this does usd prevent the panels from generating more power than I consume this nothing is fed back into the grid and I save money
Click to expand...
:eek: Ag no man, that's insane. What municipality?
 
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