Solar-selling disaster in Johannesburg and Pretoria

The cities of Johannesburg and Tshwane have gone quiet on their plans to pay residential customers for excess electricity fed into the grid.
In the past few years, the Gauteng metros made several announcements regarding the rollout of small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) programmes with feed-in tariffs for households.
The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) first announced it was working to implement a feed-in tariff of roughly R0.86 per kWh (excl. VAT) for residential SSEGs in July 2023.
It did not provide a date for when the feed-in tariff would come into effect.
In November 2023, City Power said it was working with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) on implementing the tariff and called on customers to register their solar systems by sending an e-mail to [email protected].
Over a year later, there is still no update on when the feed-in tariff will be implemented.
While City Power outlined more details on its SSEG policy in October 2024, it included no mention of feed-in tariffs.
It said that new and existing solar power users needed to obtain a notification number from the metro by filling out an electricity supply application form and numerous other documents.
These include a single-line diagram, inverter datasheet and NRS certificate, system design/drawings, maintenance procedures, a PV commissioning form, and electrical certificate of compliance.
While the city’s latest tariffs document from the 2024/2025 financial year states that residential users can feed in excess electricity, there are no details on what they will be paid for doing so.
Registering on the city’s SSEG programme requires a mandatory switch to the time-of-use (ToU) tariff, which comes with exorbitant fixed charges.
In the current financial year, City Power levies R1,094 for the monthly capacity charge and a R271 service fee every month.
Without confirmation that registering their system would allow them to export electricity, Johannesburg residents with grid-tied systems are unlikely to come to the table.

Tshwane tariff confirmed — but SSEG channels silent
The City of Tshwane (CoT) called on residents who want to feed in their excess energy to register with the metro in March 2024.
It also told MyBroadband the approved tariff was R0.70, excluding VAT, despite its website stating the approved amount was R0.12.
The plan was to submit the R0.70 tariff to the city’s council for approval and implementation from 1 July 2024.
In June 2024, former Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink said that work was underway to review the planned tariff to make it more attractive for households and businesses to sign up to the programme.
CoT’s latest tariff books confirm that there is a feed-in tariff.
However, residents who have tried to apply to join the programme have not received any feedback from the official e-mail for details on the programme.
In addition, neither Tshwane nor Joburg authorities have confirmed what the feed-in tariffs can go towards.
It may be that the feed-in rates could only be received as credits subtracted from energy consumption charges.
More attractive approaches could be to allow customers to use the feed-in credits to reduce their municipal bill or to receive cash payouts in cases where the value of electricity sold exceeds consumption and other municipal charges.
MyBroadband asked both cities for updates on their SSEG and feed-in tariff programmes in January 2025, but neither responded by publication.
Most municipalities lack feed-in tariffs
Solar feed-in schemes have been rolled out in several municipalities across the country, including all local authorities in the Western Cape.
The City of Cape Town has been leading on this front, with more than 1,007 households selling electricity to the metro by April 2024.
Techsolutions CEO Eon de Koker previously told MyBroadband that most municipalities were missing out on the potential benefits of adding excess solar capacity to their grids.
The South African Local Government Association (Salga) has tracked progress in the development of municipal SSEG policies and the implementation of feed-in tariffs.
It found that just 43% of licenced municipal electricity distributors officially permitted embedded generation while 41% had official application processes for such installation.
However, only 26% had approved and implemented feed-in tariffs.
Salga estimated that Johannesburg had roughly 85MW of residential solar capacity and Pretoria 131MW by 2023.
Commercial installations increase the total capacities in those cities to more than 400MW and 300MW.
With more attractive SSEG policies, municipalities would be able to get electricity right on their doorstep at signficantly lower costs than when buying from Eskom.