Important information for solar power users in South Africa

Most households and businesses with grid-tied solar power in South Africa do not have to meet Eskom’s onerous requirements, which have recently caused a public uproar.

Instead, they should peruse the official small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) policies of the municipality from which they buy their electricity to ensure compliance with relevant legislation.

Eskom recently ramped up its SSEG registration campaign, warning people with unregistered systems that their installations are illegal and unsafe.

The intensified drive has caught many solar power users off guard, particularly considering that the power utility’s messaging around SSEG registration for residential systems has been confusing and inconsistent until recently.

Among Eskom’s controversial criteria for grid-tied systems to be legally connected to its distribution infrastructure is that customers have an expensive bidirectional meter installed regardless of whether their inverter was set to export electricity to the grid or not.

That requirement is questionable, considering much more affordable smart and regular prepaid meters can stop the illegal practice of running back older wheel-style meters.

Eskom also forces grid-tied customers to switch to a time-of-use (ToU) tariff with significantly higher charges during peak demand and lower tariffs in off-peak periods. Adopting ToU tariffs is not compulsory in many municipalities.

They must also provide a point of access on the street that allows Eskom’s technicians to isolate the system for the grid, which requires laying electrical cabling from their distribution board to the street.

Eskom also argues that a registered electrician’s certificate of compliance (CoC) is insufficient to guarantee the system can operate safely and that the system must undergo additional testing by a professional engineer.

The costs of meeting these requirements can easily run into the tens of thousands of rand, even if a system was deemed safe by an electrician’s standards.

However, Eskom’s registration requirements are relevant only to its direct customers, which includes about 4 million residential users that use the power utility as their electricity distributor.

According to the Statistics South Africa General Household Survey for South Africa, roughly 17 million households had access to mains electricity by 2023.

That means about 13 million households get electricity from other distributors — primarily municipal authorities.

Dozens of municipalities have already developed and published SSEG policies, but their communication regarding this can be lacking, which means residents and households may simply not be aware that they exist.

The South African Local Government Association (Salga) has been tracking progress in SSEG and net-billing policies across municipalities in its Status of Embedded Generation in South African Municipalities reports.

As of December 2023, Salga found only 43% of municipalities officially allowed grid-tied solar power system installations, while 41% had official application processes.

Therefore, more than half of the country’s municipalities did not officially allow grid-tied installations or have processes in place to approve them.

However, Salga said the municipalities that already had SSEG policies in place covered most of the total electricity demand and population in the country.

The outstanding municipalities mostly govern smaller towns where SSEG has not been a priority. They are expected to adopt similar policies as major municipalities or metros in the next few years.

Municipal compliance easier and cheaper

In general, some of the key requirements for compliance in a municipality are an electrical CoC, a line diagram showing the basic system layout, and information such as the specifications of the inverter.

One area of ongoing debate is whether a qualified electrical engineer who is a member of the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) should also sign off on an embedded generation report for the system.

Salga explains that registered electricians can provide CoCs for normal alternating current (AC) wiring. AC is commonly used for powering general household appliances.

However, South Africa does not yet have a national standard for direct current (DC) wiring. DC cabling is used to connect the solar panels and batteries to the inverter.

Many municipalities demand professional engineers or other ECSA-registered people sign off on grid-tied systems due to the use of DC components. Eskom also requires sign-off by ECSA-registered personnel for its direct customers.

Salga said sign-off by professional engineers can be expensive and the industry has called for properly trained and certified installers to also be given the authority to sign off on the commissioning of systems up to a certain size.

SABS is currently developing a standard that should empower properly trained electricians to sign off on generation compliance reports.

A reputable solar power installer will ensure their customer’s system complies with the relevant municipality’s regulations and may in some instances also submit the documentation on their behalf.

To simplify the administration involved in processing applications, the South African Local Government Association (Salga) launched a centralised platform for registering grid-tied solar power systems across dozens of municipalities.

As of 17 February 2025, the platform — available at apply.sseg.org.za — had onboarded 44 municipalities.

Grid-tied solar customers and installers working in these municipalities can submit the required documentation on this website to ensure their systems are accounted for and compliant.

The platform supports several features to ease and speed up the application process, including:

• Automatic error and omissions checking in submitted details
• Warnings where systems are likely to be disallowed by the municipality because certain parameters — such as system size — are exceeded
• Automatic communication between applicants and municipal staff around the status of the application
• An infographic view of all approved SSEG systems to help identify congestion on networks
• Visual dashboards showing the total number of systems, MW capacity approved, applications awaiting approval, and more
• Automatic application database downloadable by municipalities

Major municipalities that support submissions through the online system include Buffalo City, Ekurhuleni, Emalahleni, Knysna, Midvaal, and Stellenbosch.

Figuring out what the SSEG requirements are for other municipalities can be challenging, considering they don’t always keep their websites up to date and can be difficult to reach via their regular channels.

Fortunately, Salga also offers a comprehensive list of the emails, phone numbers, and addresses for the staff or departments responsible for SSEG registration in 111 municipalities on its website.

The latest version of this list is embedded below.