Concerns as residents, businesses called to register solar systems

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) is taking Eskom to task over the current ‘irrational and unfair’ requirements for homeowners and businesses to register their solar systems.

Outa met with Eskom distribution management last week, where it shared its position on registration and compliance requirements for customers with low-voltage solar PV and/or battery energy storage (BES) systems.

Outa views these as ‘irrational, unfair, anti-poor, and discriminatory against households and businesses who have taken action or intend to take action to reduce their energy consumption from the grid’.

According to the regulations, residential owners of Small-Scale Embedded Generation (SSEG) systems must be registered with their local municipality, or with Eskom if they are in an Eskom-supplied area.

The SSEG refers to ‘power generation facilities where electricity is generally also consumed. These are mainly solar photovoltaic (PV) systems but also include other technologies’.

Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage raised concerns with requirements relating to:

• Prepaid electricity customers with conventional prepayment meters on Eskom Homelight tariffs that have installed or intend to install low-voltage solar PV and/or BES systems
• Post-paid electricity customers with conventional credit meters on Eskom Homepower tariffs that have installed or intend to install low-voltage solar PV and/or BES systems
• Electricity customers on the Eskom Homeflex time-of-use tariff that have installed or intend installing low-voltage solar PV and/or BES systems and do not export energy into the Eskom network

“Until Outa is satisfied that all the current requirements for registration of SSEG systems are rational or necessary, or indeed that registration of such systems is even required at all, Outa suggests that homeowners and businesses that have or intend to install low-voltage SSEG systems of less than 100kW may hold off on registering their systems with Eskom, or any municipality for that matter,” said Duvenage.

#DYK the key requirements for SSEG Systems? Let’s take a closer look:

👉 Certificate of Compliance (CoC):
A CoC verifies that your household wiring meets safety standards and is legally compliant.

👉 SSEG Regulations (SANS & NRS):
These regulations safeguard the integrity of… pic.twitter.com/QUN41bIr0X

— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) August 13, 2025

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