Red tape and a lack of clarity in the National Energy Regulator of South Africa’s (Nersa’s) draft regulations on Small Scale Embedded Generation (SSEG) could well prove to be prohibitive factors, from a business and compliance perspective, says solar energy company Sola Future Energy CEO Dominic Wills.

He points out that although regulation in the sector is needed to effectively plan for the country’s energy needs, its implementation requires a seamless process to avoid stifling growth in the sector.

“With hundreds of potential applications a day, Nersa will need to bolster its staff complement, invest in [proper] software and have strong communications.”

Wills further says the draft regulations leave a lot of room for uncertainty and require much more clarity if the regulator hopes for compliance.

The draft regulations now mandate the registration of off-grid and self-consumption systems, which could significantly increase the number of systems that need to be registered.

“As a national regulator, Nersa should not be concerned about registering off-grid systems as these do not affect the national grid,” Wills laments.

The three phases of the registration process for grid-connected systems have remained unchanged, in line with current legal requirements. This process takes three months – the time in which an SSEG project usually nears completion.

However, the new regulations call for an additional registration of the system with Nersa, which could take up to an additional three months, resulting in a six to nine months’ wait for a project to be able to connect.

“If the process is this lengthy, it will either severely inhibit the market, or encourage even more unregistered connections, which is already a major problem,” Wills notes.

His comments are in response to Nersa’s publication of a consultation paper on the draft rules for registration of SSEG on April 26.

The consultation paper was published to seek written comments, views and inputs from stakeholders.

The draft rules were developed following the gazetted ‘Licensing Exemption and Registration Notice’ by the Energy Minister in November.

The Energy Minister recently amended the gazetted Licensing Exemption and Registration Notice, which has subsequently necessitated the review of the consultation paper on the draft rules to be aligned with the amended Notice.