{"id":609052,"date":"2025-09-02T06:59:55","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T04:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=609052"},"modified":"2025-09-02T07:01:45","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T05:01:45","slug":"eskom-solar-rules-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/609052-eskom-solar-rules-lie.html","title":{"rendered":"Eskom solar rules lie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Contrary to Eskom’s claims, South Africa already has the necessary standards to allow for fully legally compliant and safe grid-tied solar power installations without an electrical engineer’s sign-off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eskom’s contentious small-scale embedded generation (SSEG) registration rules<\/a> have been widely criticised over the past few months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solar power installers and civil society organisations, including Afriforum and the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), have questioned the legality of Eskom’s rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The generally accepted practice is for a professional electrician to sign off on the system and provide customers with an electrical certificate of compliance (CoC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Eskom requires that customers obtain an embedded generation compliance report signed by a member of the Engineering Council of South Africa (Ecsa) to register their systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has defended the requirement as an “interim” solution, arguing that the current South African National Standards (SANS) did not provide the necessary technical and safety specifications for grid-tied systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the power utility, the existing SANS 10142-1 wiring of premises for low-voltage installations only applies to standby systems that function when the grid is unavailable, like during a power cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power utility continues to insist it is awaiting the publication of SANS 10142-1-2, which will provide additional special requirements for grid-tied or hybrid low-voltage SSEG installations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Outa energy advisor Chris Yelland previously told MyBroadband that the SABS had completely abandoned the SANS 10142-1-2 standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, Eskom recently told the media that the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) was “in the process of finalising low voltage regulations to address this gap”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, South Africa has also adopted an international standard for solar PV installations \u2014 the IEC 60349-7-712 standard, which was renamed SANS 60364-7-712 for local use. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Electrical Contractors Association of South Africa (Ecasa) states that this standard is used by Installation Electricians and Master Electricians to ensure that SSEG systems are technically sound and safe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yelland recently told MyBroadband that well-placed sources at the relevant SABS working group have confirmed that the SANS 10142-1-2 standards have not been revived. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Yelland, the change that Eskom has alluded to in its recent feedback is likely the removal of a supplementary note in the SANS 10142-1, which had an exclusion for non-standby systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this note was not legally binding as it was not part of the gazetted standards. Therefore, Eskom has no legal grounds for excluding grid-tied or hybrid system installations from the adopted standards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guidelines rather than rules<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Chris Yelland, EE Business Intelligence MD<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Following discussions with the power utility in August 2025, Outa recommended that Eskom customers hold off on registration of their systems for the time being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afriforum previously also advised<\/a> people to be wary of Eskom’s registration sugarcoating, including offers of free bidirectional meters, feed-in tariff upsides, and a temporary registration fee exemption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organisation is concerned that Eskom may use people’s data to apply special tariffs to solar users in the future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Yelland, well-placed sources in the SABS working group have strong indications that Eskom is on the cusp of conceding this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yelland believes that Eskom and municipalities have resisted and contributed to delays of clear-cut rules on grid-tied systems for years because of the impact these systems have on their revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He reiterated that the National Rationalised Specifications (NRS) that Eskom also uses to justify its requirements are not legally enforceable, but are guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The NRS specifications are aimed at parts of electricity networks up to the customer’s meter, which are under the jurisdiction of Eskom and power utilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yelland said these are intended as guidelines for power distributors regarding technical aspects of the electricity network “before” the customer’s meter, which excludes a home solar power system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These conditions may form part of the licensing conditions of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), but they are not intended or legally binding on households. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only laws that are mandatory for home electrical installations are the Electrical Installation Regulations of the Occupational Health and Safety Act. SANS 10142-1 forms part of those regulations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom continues to mislead the public regarding the legality of its onerous solar power system registration rules. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":599557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27995],"tags":[1731,10034,23519,181,101242,23523,84773,4922],"class_list":["post-609052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-afriforum","tag-chris-yelland","tag-electrical-contractors-association-of-south-africa-ecasa","tag-eskom","tag-sans-10142-2","tag-sans-10142-1","tag-small-scale-embedded-generation-sseg","tag-solar-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609052"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609052"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":609190,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609052\/revisions\/609190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}