Rumours of a special new R938 levy to be imposed on electricity consumers that have installed a solar system are misleading, says solar power and battery back-up solutions provider Alumo Energy MD Rein Henkemans.

He says there is no proposed special levy for solar users, but instead, Eskom has applied to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa for a new tariff structure for all homeowners that would include a fixed cost and variable cost.

“Only if approved, fixed charges would apply to anyone who is connected to the national grid, without any discrimination between municipal or solar users, which by necessity would include solar users who are still grid-tied,” says Henkemans.

These charges are to cover the cost of providing the connection to the grid, especially in instances where solar producers switch to the grid. “Variable costs would then depend on the individual user’s energy consumption,” he says.

Henkemans explains, however, that slightly different tariff structures would apply for municipal users and solar users. “Solar users’ fixed charges would likely be slightly higher than ordinary municipal users to account for higher demand, administration and supply costs.”

As such, solar producers would have lower variable charges because of their lower energy use, representing a cost-saving.

Further, he says many households also receive a discount on the energy they feed back into the grid, depending on their area and municipal provider, which means that solar users can save “thousands on their bills over time”.

These include residents in the City of Johannesburg, the City of Ekurhuleni, the City of Cape Town, Eskom customers, and soon also eThekwini customers.

“In our view, this means solar power still represents a highly attractive investment for securing clean and reliable energy for your home while saving money on electricity or diesel for generators,” notes Henkemans.

Alumo Energy compliance manager Jeandre van Zyl warns that panic over the supposed levy is a red herring and that solar users should rather be concerned about ensuring their systems are properly registered with their respective municipalities as small-scale embedded generation units.

Without this registration, he says, a solar connection is seen as illegal in terms of South African law, and users could face hefty fines and penalties potentially amounting to thousands of rands.

“Unfortunately, it is all too common for the infamous bakkie brigade to install poor-quality, illegal solar systems without submitting the correct documentation or alerting the homeowners that they need to register the system,” says Van Zyl.

He notes that the City of Cape Town is already vigilant about fining and penalising households with unregistered solar systems.

Likewise, other service providers, such as Eskom and City Power, have advised that they will be clamping down on illegal solar connections in the coming months to protect the integrity of the grid.

“Surveys show that there are about 11 000 solar users within the City of Johannesburg alone, and of these, over half are currently unregistered,” states Van Zyl, adding that the process of registering is “fairly simple”.

Meanwhile, he says Alumo Energy does not usually recommend that users go completely off-grid, as this requires exponentially more battery capacity and carries a much higher price tag.

“An 80% off-grid system offers significant long-term savings despite any changes in Eskom tariffs.”