Eskom Legally Blocked From Interfering In Solar

This week Eskom announced that those properties with solar systems under 50kVA
do not need to have an Eskom engineer sign off their systems. Good news is so rare these days as we always seem to be on the end of some manipulated decision benefitting the few in charge. Eskom is the failed corrupt SOE power supplier who are to blame for years of load shedding.

The properties who have solar still need to register their systems, but there will be no registration fee. Solar systems still need to be signed off and have a certificate of compliance. Eskom called this good news and we all know this was not part of their plan and they have been forced into this direction.

We can all thank the civil action group called OUTA for this outcome as they tackled Eskom head on. Eskom were trying to push through registration fees of up to R30K ($1.8K) which included one of their official engineers signing off the solar installation. The joke was the SA government cannot steal from the sun ,but they tried to and it is great to see them being blocked.

When we had our solar installed you obviously have someone who is complaint and is a registered installer because this is a costly investment and needs to be installed correctly. All I have to do now is double check the installer has submitted the paperwork making sure our system has been registered. If he has not then I suggest he holds off for now until there are more updates as no one wants to be the first to comply as things can change. I do not think he has submitted any paper work and I should at least have a copy of the COC. Having a registered installer was important as having an external sign off would just have added to the installation costs and made no sense.

The other bit of good news is those with solar are not required to have smart meters meaning Eskom cannot run out a separate billing system charging solar users an increased price. The original idea of charging solar users almost double for topping up form the grid was also deemed illegal and rightly so. I see no benefit of having a smart meter fitted as I have no plans of sending electricity to the grid as they will always be looking for ways to screw you over.

Apparently installers had been complaining that the local municipalities had been dragging their feet signing off installations as electricity revenue accounts for over 40% of their total revenue. This was more about slowing down anyone considering moving to solar and these were their higher income customers they would be losing.

This should open the floodgates for many more properties to install solar as having an extra R30K expense hanging over your head was holding many back. The good news for myself is there is no more time pressure increasing the size of my system to get off the grid before March 31st next year which was the date announced. I can now add extra solar panels slowly and aim to be off the grid later next year or even 2027. All this really means is that Eskom will want higher increases next year and the year after to compensate for these losses of revenue and why getting off the grid is still the aim.

We all knew what their intentions were as they had the meter readers taking photographs of all properties who had solar. This is why you wait and see and do not just go ahead with what is being proposed. When the toll roads happened I knew of people registering and paying from day one and that was eventually scrapped and those people that paid were never reimbursed.

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