Metro to consult solar-powered home owners or businesses on selling surplus power
This follows President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announcing changes to the regulations on power generation to allow municipalities to procure power independently.
Pretoria residents who have, or plan to install, solar panels at their homes or businesses would be able to sell their surplus power to Eskom or the municipality.
This was as the Tshwane metro plans the introduction of network charges that will oversee a set of revised tariff structures on new energy generation systems.
The move comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa recently announced changes to the regulations on power generation to allow municipalities to procure power independently.
Tshwane metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said, however, that the metro would not grant businesses or residents permission to direct their power to the national power grid, without following procedures.
To begin feeding excess power to the grid, customers must register on the database for Small Scale Embedded Generators (SSEG).
“This is to ensure that the City complies with the safety regulations for its officials and ensure that there is no impact on the network depending on the size of the installation.”
He said as a result of registration, the metro would also ensure that bi-directional metering was installed to limit pollution of the network.
“Any customer that is still grid-connected to Tshwane’s network will have to install bi-directional meters to avoid polluting the network with excess power.”
He said a customer that wanted to be off-grid completely could have the metro disconnect their energy supply.
“Tshwane cannot incentivise customers that are still connected to the network as they use our network as a battery and are not paying for the maintenance of such network.
“In the absence of these customers not applying, the voltage levels strain become a problem to other customers connected to the same network.”
Mashigo said registration for installation would ensure that Tshwane was in the loop with the level of revenue forgone and network strengthening needed.
He said due to the relaxed actions by the government to end the country’s prolonged energy crisis, a process to review tariff structuring would begin soon.
“Tshwane will be going out on public consultation to introduce network charges as part of its cost of supply studies outcome to review the electricity tariffs structure.”
He said this as customers would also be compensated for the energy they sent to the grid, which enabled Tshwane to diversify its energy purchase away from Eskom.
He said the Electricity Regulation Act (ERA) had also recently made exemptions for up to 100MVA to be used for own use.
Mashigo said the metro would have to negotiate a long-term power purchase agreement should excess power be sold to the metro, or a wheeling agreement should the developer want to wheel power through Tshwane’s network in line with council-approved tariffs.
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